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After searching the world for great faith-based humanitarians, Gonzaga University today announced three finalists for the 2014 Opus Prize: Sister Tesa Fitzgerald of Hour Children in Queens, New York; Gollapalli Israel, of the Janodayam Social Education Centre in Chennai, India; and the Rev. Joseph Maier, of the Mercy Centre Human Development Foundation in Bangkok.
The winner of the Opus Prize, sponsored by the Opus Prize Foundation, will be announced at an Oct. 16 ceremony in Spokane and will be awarded $1 million to further his or her work; two finalists will be awarded $100,000 each. Gonzaga will host all three finalists for a series of campus and public events Oct. 14-16.
“The Opus Prize Foundation intends for this philanthropic work to inspire college students, and it has provided an exceptional educational experience for all those involved,” said Michael Herzog, chair of Gonzaga’s Opus Prize Steering Committee.
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Tracy Simmons is an award-winning journalist specializing in religion reporting and digital entrepreneurship. In her approximate 20 years on the religion beat, Simmons has tucked a notepad in her pocket and found some of her favorite stories aboard cargo ships in New Jersey, on a police chase in Albuquerque, in dusty Texas church bell towers, on the streets of New York and in tent cities in Haiti. Simmons has worked as a multimedia journalist for newspapers across New Mexico, Texas, Connecticut and Washington. She is the executive director of SpokaneFāVS.com, a digital journalism start-up covering religion news and commentary in Spokane, Washington. She also writes for The Spokesman-Review and national publications. She is a Scholarly Assistant Professor of Journalism at Washington State University.
