Marjaree Mason Center honors top 10 professional women

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Wednesday, The Marjaree Mason Center hosted its annual Top Ten Professional Women and Leading Business awards.

More than a thousand people filled the Fresno Convention Center downtown to honor ten exceptional women and a business while recognizing the work that still needs to be done.

"It's our biggest event of the year and any net proceeds from this event get used to support our crisis response, our 24/7 help line, and emergency shelter which really critically needs the most amount of funding every single year," said Nicole Linder, executive director of the Marjaree Mason Center.

The crowd heard from keynote speakers Danielle and Mark Herzlich in a conversation moderated by former Fresno State and NFL quarterback David Carr.

Danielle shared her own story of domestic violence before meeting her husband and Mark spoke about his inspirational journey to play football for the New York Giants, after beating a rare form of cancer.

Our own Action News Anchor Graciela Moreno emceed the ceremony.

Among the top ten honorees was Margarita Rocha.

"Former honorees have said to me 'lean back and enjoy the ride' and so that's what I'm doing today. I'm in the moment of this honor," said Rocha.

Rocha has served as executive director of Centro La Familia for several years, helping Valley families get critical resources.

"We do a lot of work in the area of domestic violence and so I appreciate the fact that our organization, on behalf of myself, is being recognized as well for the work that we do," said Rocha.

The work of the Marjaree Mason Center is never-ending. Before the end of the year it's set to open a new resource center that's under construction in Northwest Fresno. It will operate around the clock to support survivors using the 24/7 crisis response hotline and a drop-in center.

The organization still needs more funding to get the project across the finish line and it's getting some help.

"We have an additional match as we did last year, a different organization is going to match up to a million dollars from Nov 18-Dec 1 so we're just going to pray and hope the community rallies around us to complete the funding needed," said Linder.

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