Diocese's Dee Rowland recognized for making the community better

Intermountain Catholic

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Dee Rowland (left), government liaison for the Diocese of Salt Lake City, receives the 2011 Interfaith Award from the Salt Lake Interfaith Roundtable from the organization's executive director, Rev. Canon W. Ivan Cendese. Michelle Francis, (right) also received the award for volunteering her auditing services.

Dee Rowland, Diocese of Salt Lake City government liaison, was lauded by the Interfaith Roundtable "for all she does to make the community a better place, and for being in it from the beginning," according to the plaque she received during a breakfast Feb. 3.

The roundtable was organized before the 2002 Winter Olympics to provide religious services for athletes, who came from various faith traditions. It has continued with the mission statement "to promote love, harmony and understanding among people of all faith traditions, cultures, and belief systems in the spirit of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games." Its members are faith leaders in the community.

"We have been so fortunate to have Dee as part of the Interfaith Roundtable from the very beginning, not only for her voice but for her presence, because it became an endorsement that we were more than some fringe group," said the Rev. Canon W. Ivan Cendese, the organization’s executive director, who praised Rowland for being a voice for society’s most vulnerable people.

The roundtable is celebrating February as Interfaith Month, with activities ranging from scripture readings, hymns and prayers at the Sikh Temple of Utah in Taylorsville on Feb. 13 to an interfaith musical tribute at the Salt Lake Tabernacle on Feb. 20 to the last event of the month, a TAIZE Service on Feb. 25 at the Center for Spiritual Living.

For event information, visit www.interfaithroundtable.org.