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Ashley Mihal and James Ide wedding

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St. Anthony and St. George Maronite Churches in Wilkes-Barre will host relics of St. Sharbel on March 15 and March 16

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; From Haiti to Zambia, women have been stringing beads, 100 at a time, into bracelets.</p><p>They&#8217;ve been creating the jewelry in Rwanda and Bali, too. And in India and Uganda.</p><p>Even in New York, crafting &#8220;The 100 Good Deeds Bracelet&#8221; is a way for vulnerable women, many of them HIV-positive, to earn money for their families.</p><p>The idea for the project came from Mary Fisher, an activist, author and artist who will speak on &#8220;Freeing the Entrepreneur for the Global Good&#8221; at the Allan P. Kirby Lecture in Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship.</p><p>Set for 7 p.m. March 16 in the Dorothy Dickson Darte Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Wilkes-Barre, the lecture is co-sponsored by the Wilkes University Family Business Alliance. It is free and open to the public.</p><p>In a recent telephone interview Fisher, 67, who lives in West Palm Beach, Florida, said her talk will address &#8220;how do we free women, especially, to be entrepreneurs, how do we break the barriers of lack of education, violence, and lack of access to health care, the cycles that haunt generation after generation of women and girls.&#8221;</p><p>Fisher stepped into the national spotlight 24 years ago at the 1992 Republican National Convention, where she made an eloquent plea for compassion and help for people who are HIV positive.</p><p>She had received that diagnosis a year earlier, but did not fit the stereotypes prevalent at the time.</p><p>&#8220;Though I am white and a mother, I am one with a black infant struggling with tubes in a Philadelphia hospital. Though I am female and contracted this disease in marriage and enjoy the warm support of my family, I am one with the lonely gay man sheltering a flickering candle from the cold wind of his family&#8217;s rejection,&#8221; she declared in a speech the Oxford University Press ranked among &#8220;the best 100 American speeches of the 20th century.&#8221;</p><p>At the time Fisher did not expect to live even six more years, but treatments to slow the progress of HIV improved and, she gratefully reports, she lived to see her two sons grow to adulthood.</p><p>But HIV weakens a person&#8217;s immune system, and she believes that may have contributed to the breast cancer her doctors diagnosed in 2012, which led to a bilateral mastectomy.</p><p>&#8220;My life has been up and down,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I faced my own mortality more than once.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;I believe I&#8217;m cancer free,&#8221; she added. &#8220;I&#8217;m still on medication (but) I&#8217;m doing great. Today&#8217;s a great day. Today&#8217;s a wonderful day.&#8221;</p><p>Fisher&#8217;s &#8220;100 Good Deeds&#8221; project has taken her to seven different countries where she met with women who would make the bracelets. &#8220;I taught the women how to weave the cord, to bead the thread and make the whole bracelet.&#8221;</p><p>She and the women discussed good deeds they may have done for others or that others have done for them. &#8220;Many of them have trained other women as their good deed,&#8221; Fisher said. &#8220;It&#8217;s been a remarkable gift. It&#8217;s helped them get employment. They have been able to feed their children and send their children to school.&#8221;</p><p>Fisher, who considers herself a messenger, said she wants to help people understand that &#8220;We are one and we are a community that takes care of each other. People have to know that they matter.&#8221;</p><p>In conjunction with the lecture, 100 Good Deeds Bracelets will be available for sale at Wilkes. If you wear one, you are encouraged to move a bead to another part of the cord each time you do a good deed.</p><style>
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<div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_Mary-Fisher-Headshot-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption"></div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_Mary-Fisher-Headshot-1.jpg</photo0><caption0></caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_gooddeed-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Proceeds from sale of The 100 Good Deeds Bracelet benefits vulnerable women, many who have HIV, and their families. The bracelets will be available for purchase at Wilkes University. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_gooddeed-1.jpg</photo1><caption1>Proceeds from sale of The 100 Good Deeds Bracelet benefits vulnerable women, many who have HIV, and their families. The bracelets will be available for purchase at Wilkes University. </caption1><photoCredit1></photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p><strong>By Mary Therese Biebel</strong></p><p>mbiebel@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mary Therese Biebel at 570-991-6109 or on Twitter @BiebelMT</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Activist Mary Fisher will deliver Allan P. Kirby Lecture at Wilkes University on March 16