TCNJ News
For Immediate Release
October 28, 2004
TCNJ Grad Brings Hope to War-torn Liberia
EWING, NJ . MacDella Cooper arrived in the United States in 1993 as a 16 year-old refugee, after fleeing a brutal civil war in Liberia.
She subsequently graduated from high school and, in 2001, earned a degree in communications from The College of New Jersey before working as a marketing and public relations director for Jones Apparel Group in New York City.
Cooper realizes that many of her countrymen have not been as fortunate. In fact, the United Nations estimates that more than 200,000 Liberians were killed and more than one million-half of those being children-have been displaced since the beginning of the civil war in the early 1990s. Now that the war is over, the country of Liberia is beginning to move forward and starting to rebuild and regain economic stability. However, an overwhelming number remain unemployed, homeless and hungry.
Understanding their plight on a personal level, Cooper has spent the last five years collecting donations of clothes, personal products and school supplies for the women and children of Liberia . And she recently established The MacDella Cooper Foundation (MCF), a non-profit organization created to help the survivors of the 14 year Liberian civil war by providing basic school supplies for children returning to the classroom as well as clothing and personal hygiene products for women re-entering the workforce.
MCF is holding a fundraising event on Friday, October 29 at Bruno Jamais Restaurant, 24 E. 81 st Street and Madison Avenue in New York City to celebrate the official launch of the foundation.
For more information about The MacDella Cooper Foundation, how to donate or where to purchase tickets for Friday's event, please visit www.macdellacooper.com.
About The College of New Jersey
TCNJ currently is ranked as one of the 75 "Most Competitive" schools in the nation by Barron's Profiles of American Colleges, is rated the No. 1 public institution in the northern region of the country by U.S. News & World Report, and is one of Kiplinger's Personal Finance's top educational values in the country. In 2006, the College joined an elite group of institutions when it was awarded a Phi Beta Kappa chapter. Fewer than 10 percent of the nation's colleges and universities share this honor.
