In 2000, the homeless services organization Friendship Place honored Lee at our Benjamin E. Cooper Awards Celebration, which is held annually to recognize extraordinary volunteer contributions to our mission. She shared the award that year with her friend Minna Nathanson. Here's what we wrote in the program for the event:
"The Community Council for the Homeless at Friendship Place [since renamed "Friendship Place"] brings together citizens, congregations and businesses in the northwest corner of DC in a unique partnership to meet the needs of homeless neighbors. One of the organization's founders in 1991, Lee Carty, communications director of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, wrote funding proposals, tracked donations and helped to mobilize all manner of community resources. She also initiated our program of representative payees, who today help clients manage their disability benefits and often serve as friend and mentor to someone moving from the street into one of our apartments. Most notably, as CCH/FP's vice president for communications, she recruited Minna Nathanson for the education and public information committee. Minna, a DC native who grew up in this neighborhood, is an editorial consultant and graphic designer with an outstanding history of volunteer action in the District, especially in the arts and on behalf of children and families. As editors and designers of brochures, reports, newsletters and, most recently, our website, friendshipplace.org, Lee and Minna together tell the story of CCH/FP and the many homeless men and women who have rebuilt their lives with the support of their neighbors."
