Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, an organization co-founded by the “Parks and Rec” alumna, will receive this year’s Spirit of Anne Frank Youth Empowerment Award (SAFA). Per the official press release, for the past 23 years, SAFA Awards have been annually awarded to those who champion Anne Frank’s “ideals of hope, justice, and equality.”
This year’s SAFA Awards be held in New York on June 12, and will also present student scholarships and educator awards.
Alongside Poehler’s organization, other recipients will include Coca-Cola Company’s vice president Racquel Harris Mason and violinist, activist, and Syrian refugee Mariela Shaker. Humanitarian and Holocaust survivor Rosa Strygler will be posthumously honored with this year’s SAFA Lifetime Inspiration Award.
Founded by Poehler and producer Meredith Walker, Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls is an organization dedicated to helping young women professionally excel “through their own intellect and creativity.” Its outreach includes an educational website, as well as a YouTube channel that features, among other topics, influential women driving the STEM and creative communities. Above all things, Poehler’s organization works to encourage girls who are “changing the world by being themselves.”
Poehler also serves as an Ambassador for the Worldwide Orphans Foundation. Currently, she is preparing to make her feature directorial debut on Netflix’s upcoming comedy “Wine Country,” which follows a group of friends celebrating a 50th birthday in Napa. She will serve as one of the producers via her shingle, Paper Kite Productions. “Wine Country” will begin shooting later this month.
