Two Humanitarian Service Award Recipients Announced by Duke Chapel

Chapel Humanitarian Service Award winners Rev. Colin Miller and Brenda Brodie.

Duke University Chapel will present its 2014 Humanitarian Service Award to two people who have been exemplary in their service to others during a reception Nov. 16. The recipients are Brenda Brodie, a co-founder of the Durham nonprofit SEEDS, which teaches respect for the earth and each other through gardening and growing food; and the Rev. Colin Miller, founder of the Community of the Franciscan Way, also in Durham, which models a life of communal prayer and acts of mercy.Brodie and Miller will be honored during a program 3 p.m. Sunday in the Divinity School’s Alumni Memorial Commons Room. The event is free and open to the public.Each will receive a grant of $1,500 to further humanitarian efforts. Brodie, a member of the Congregation at Duke Chapel, co-founded South Eastern Efforts Developing Sustainable Spaces (SEEDS) in 1994 with Annice Kenan, beginning with a garden on a two-acre plot in Northeast Central Durham. The organization has since expanded to include an after-school program, an education center, community celebrations and a business run by teenagers that sells produce at the Durham Farmers’ Market.About eight years ago, Miller began leading daily morning and evening prayer services at Saint Joseph’s Episcopal Church, near Duke’s East Campus. He invited homeless men nearby to join him in prayer and shared meals. As relationships within this group developed, they formed a residential community that is now The Community of the Franciscan Way and consists of three houses. Miller is a priest in the Episcopal Church and holds a Ph.D. in religion from Duke. The chapel’s Humanitarian Service Award aims to recognize individuals with a commitment to service and simplicity and is inspired by the lives of two Duke professors: Dr. George R. Parkerson Jr. and the late C. Eric Lincoln.