Marge Rogatz, a longtime resident of Roslyn Heights and more recently of Port Washington, is a founding officer of ERASE Racism which has been working for 16 years to eliminate barriers to racial equity on Long Island and beyond. Rogatz also is serving this year as cochair of the Annual Benefit Committee responsible for planning the organization’s main fundraising event, which supports the organization’s significant research, education, policy advocacy, legal action and civic engagement activities. The ERASE Racism 2016 Annual Benefit will be held on June 7 at the Garden City Hotel.
Rogatz has been president and full-time unpaid CEO of Community Advocates since 1986. Community Advocates is a social justice nonprofit organization founded in 1972.
Rogatz also was a founder of Nassau-Suffolk Coalition for the Homeless, serving as an officer on its executive board for 16 years and playing a leading role in helping the coalition to bring some $70 million in HUD Homeless Assistance grants and other funding to nonprofit housing and service providers in Nassau County. She was a founder and an officer of Sustainable Long Island for 10 years and a founder of the Long Island Campaign for Affordable Rental Housing. She is an emerita member of board and grants committee of the Long Island Community Foundation. She served on the Nassau County Task Force on Homelessness and in 2007, was appointed by Nassau County Executive Thomas R. Suozzi as chair of the Nassau County 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness, which she headed until 2010. In 2008, she was appointed by NYS Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli to the Board of Directors of the State of New York Mortgage Agency (SONYMA). In this capacity, she also serves on the Mortgage Insurance Fund Committee and on the NYS Homes & Community Renewal Governance and Program committees, participating in key statewide housing finance and development decisions.
Previously, Rogatz carried out consulting assignments in fields related to community development and human services for NYC Mayor John Lindsay, Nassau County Executive Eugene Nickerson and Suffolk County Executives Lee Dennison and John Klein. She also consulted for NYC Head Start and for community hospitals and organizations in East Harlem and the South Bronx. During the civil rights movement, Rogatz served as special assistant to James Farmer, national director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).
The ERASE Racism 2017 Annual Benefit will honor Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III for his groundbreaking and ongoing work to advance civil and human rights; Frederick K. Brewington, Esq., for leading the charge for a fairer and more just Long Island; and, posthumously, Amy Maiello Hagedorn, a passionate funder who cared deeply about systemic change. ERASE Racism will present its Leadership Award to Islamic Center of Long Island for its leadership in promoting interfaith harmony and social justice.
For more information and to buy tickets, visit www.eraseracismny.org or call 516-921-4863.
