Zoom panel discussion based on Harriet Lorence Nesbitt’s memoirs Apocalypse of Youth, Date and Time:Saturday December 6, 2025 at 8:30 am PST and 11:30 EST
Gemma Wenger will send the zoom link shortly
Here is the line up for the panel discussion of Apocalypse of Youth:
Participants:
Moderator:
1.Gemma Wenger, BA UCLA Economics, MA Education. Founder of Gemma Wenger Ministries, host of Beauty For Ashes and Gemma Wenger's Hollywood Panelists:
Gemma will open with a Word of Prayer and introduce each speaker
Gemma’s intro: In Apocalypse of Youth, Harriet Nesbitt expressed concern for the rise of the homeless mentality ill in the United States.
2.Dr. Martha Reyes, psychologist and Founder of Hosanna Foundation contributed a chapter to Reverend Dr. Wilma Faye Mathis' book: Jesus Among The Homeless describing her work as a psychologist and founder of The Hosanna Foundation. Dr. Reyes was a keynote speaker at one of Michael P.Grace's 1990 high profile NYC testimonial luncheons. Harriet Nesbitt attended that luncheon and spoke to Martha about MMHH vital work with the mentally ill.
3.Gemma intro: Reverend Dr.William David Spencer is a distinguished scholar and author, who contributed the afterword to Keeping the Dream Alive: Reflections On The Art Of Harriet Lorence Nesbitt. (He received a Southern California Motion Picture Council Award Golden Halo award for his fiction: Name In The Papers. Dr. Spencer will read the final paragraph of his foreword (page 28) in Keeping The Dream Alive
Dr. Spencer
So strong was this vision and her identification with the efficacy of God's grace that she created a microcosmic parallel to the macrocosmic sacrifice of Jesus by infusing a corresponding redemptive dimension into the death of her son. To do this she stepped from the realm of art, fulfilling her identification with Mary in The Atomic Madonna, by becoming herself what she had admired in others, an active reformer. She created her own organization, as founder of Mothers For More Halfway Houses, explaining to her LinkedIn audience, "I am an advocate for the mentally ill, as well as a political columnist." She could not have expressed her own vision more clearly by thought or by action. She had become one of her own subjects, what she admired most in those subjects she painted. She was now a leader in bringing positive order to the threatened lives of others in the real world as an agent of reconciliation of The Great Reconciler to this fallen world.
In Apocalypse of Youth, Harriet Nesbitt expressed concern for the devastating impact of climate change in the United States. Her painting Sandy The Storm portrays the damage of flooding due to climate change.
4.Gemma intro: Charlene Eber holds a BA Psychology. She produced and directed in Hollywood at Video Adventures. Charlene will read page 10 of Keeping The Dream Alive while I screen share the digital image of Sandy The Storm.
Sandy The Storm Nothing left but a porch! Disaster impressed her in particular Hurricane Sandy, which left one couple with nothing left but their porch, an image of Sandy's trail of destruction. Hurricane Sandy, a late season tropical cyclone, swept through the Caribbean and up the East Coast of the United States in late October 2012. The Storm left dozens dead, thousands homeless, and millions without power. Total damage was in the billions of dollars. Sandy The Storm received a Southern California Motion Picture Council Award for artistic excellence in Hollywood California on December 16, 2013. Harriet's painting focused on the New York couple who had nothing left but their porch. Harriet completed Sandy The Storm to show the devastating impact of climate change.
Charlene’s closing statement: I was honored to accept the SCMPC award on behalf of Harriet for her epic work: Sandy The Storm. I spoke with Harriet to let her know how much I appreciated her advocacy for the mentally ill homeless as founder of Mothers for More Halfway Houses.
In Apocalypse of Youth, Harriet Nesbitt expressed concern over racism in the United States. Aaron Ezra Mann, Burke Fong and Julia C Davis are here to comment on racism in modern and postmodern America.
5.Gemma intro: Aaron Ezra Mann, (aka Ezra Mann) is an Academy Award-winning producer who was reared in an Orthodox Jewish tradition. His parents were Holocaust survivors. He is acknowledged in Berkeley Street Theatre for making a courageous paradigm cultural shift in the Hollywood community by accepting Jesus as Messiah, Lord, and Savior. His powerful play Otto & The White Dove is an autobiographical account of his conversion.
6. Gemma intro: Julia C. Davis, holds an EdM from Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is an African American educator and author. She contributed the foreword to Apocalypse of Youth identifying the national crisis resulting from the rise of violent mass murders of American youth. Many of these incidents stem from racial and religious bias.
7. Gemma’s intro: Burke Fong, a former UCDavis student and a UC Berkeley graduate is a fourth generation American of Chinese descent. Burke will explain that the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 had a profound impact on Chinese communities in the US forcing families apart, and closing businesses.
Burke will read from UCDavis Law Professor Dr. Gabriel Chin’s Chinese Asian Exclusion Research Project about his family restaurant The Chicago Cafe.
Burke:
The Chicago Café in Woodland is the oldest Chinese restaurant in California – and possibly the United States – an interdisciplinary UC Davis research project led by Professor Gabriel “Jack” Chin has found.
This Chinese Asian Exclusion Research Project identifies the Chicago Café as the longest continuously operating Chinese restaurant in the state in the new paper Symbols of Survival: Finding the Oldest Chinese Restaurants in the United States.
The researchers also determined that the Woodland cafe, which dates to the early 1900s, is very close in age to Butte, Montana’s Pekin Noodle Parlor, widely reported to be the oldest Chinese restaurant in the United States.
Operated by generations of my Fong family, the Chicago Café persisted through the anti-Chinese laws and public sentiment of the early 20th century, two world wars, the Spanish flu and the COVID-19 pandemic.
8.Gemma intro: Olga Soler, is a first generation Puerto Rican American who holds degrees in psychology and education and has studied theology at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. She is a prolific author, artist and actress whose professional background includes work with the homeless, mentally ill and drug addicted. She is the author of Apocalypse of Youth.
9. Gemma intro: Richard Bruce, holds a PHC Economics from UC Davis. He is a former Economics instructor at St. John’s University. He will comment on the increase of homelessness in the current US economy.
10 Gemma intro: Jeanne DeFazio holds a BA from UCDavis, an MAR in Theology from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary and an ELL credential. She is the editor of Apocalypse of Youth. Jeanne assisted Harriet Nesbitt (1996-1998) with her column Politics and Such. Jeanne also served as a patron for Mothers For More Halfway Houses benefits and encouraged philanthropists to support MMHH.
In the words of CS Lewis: What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it. I want to thank my friends for showing up and speaking out about racial violence, religious persecution, the mentally ill homeless and drastic climate changes. I am grateful that Harriet Nesbitt focused on these issues in her column Politics and Such and in her memoirs Apocalypse of Youth. As concerned Americans, by the grace of God, we will meet these challenges head on and resolve them. God bless you.
Gemma will close citing Mother Teresa's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech:
At that the hour of death we are going to be judged on what we have been to the poor, to the hungry, naked, the homeless, and Jesus makes himself that hungry one, that naked one, that homeless one, not only hungry for bread, but hungry for love, not only naked for a piece of cloth, but naked of human dignity, not only homeless for a room to live, but homeless for being forgotten, being unloved, being uncared for, being a nobody to nobody, having forgotten what is human love, what is human touch, what is to be loved by somebody. Jesus will say: Whatever you did to the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.
. YouTube description
Apocalypse Of Youth
A panel discussion based on Harriet Lorence Nesbitt’s memoirs Apocalypse of Youth: Moderator: 1.Gemma Wenger, BA UCLA Economics, MA Education. Founder of Gemma Wenger Ministries, host of Beauty For Ashes and Gemma Wenger's Hollywood; Participants: Dr. Martha Reyes, psychologist and Founder of Hosanna Foundation contributed a chapter to Reverend Dr. Wilma Faye Mathis' book: Jesus Among The Homeless describing her work as a psychologist and founder of The Hosanna Foundation. Dr. Reyes was a keynote speaker at one of Michael P.Grace's 1990 high profile NYC testimonial luncheons. Harriet Nesbitt attended that luncheon and spoke to Martha about MMHH vital work with the mentally ill.3. Reverend Dr.William David Spencer is a distinguished scholar and author, who contributed the afterword to Keeping the Dream Alive: Reflections On The Art Of Harriet Lorence Nesbitt. (He received a Southern California Motion Picture Council Award Golden Halo award for his fiction: Name In The Papers. Dr. Spencer will read the final paragraph of his foreword (page 28) in Keeping The Dream Alive 4.Charlene Eber holds a BA Psychology. She produced and directed in Hollywood at Video Adventures. Charlene will read page 10 of Keeping The Dream Alive while I screen share the digital image of Sandy The Storm. 5. Aaron Ezra Mann, (aka Ezra Mann) is an Academy Award-winning producer who was reared in an Orthodox Jewish tradition. His parents were Holocaust survivors. He is acknowledged in Berkeley Street Theatre for making a courageous paradigm cultural shift in the Hollywood community by accepting Jesus as Messiah, Lord, and Savior. His powerful play Otto & The White Dove is an autobiographical account of his conversion. 6. Julia C. Davis, holds an EdM from Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is an African American educator and author. She contributed the foreword to Apocalypse of Youth identifying the national crisis resulting from the rise of violent mass murders of American youth. Many of these incidents stem from racial and religious bias.
7. Burke Fong, a former UCDavis student and a UC Berkeley graduate is a fourth generation American of Chinese descent. Burke will explain that the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 had a profound impact on Chinese communities in the US forcing families apart, and closing businesses.8.Olga Soler, is a first generation Puerto Rican American who holds degrees in psychology and education and has studied theology at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. She is a prolific author, artist and actress whose professional background includes work with the homeless, mentally ill and drug addicted. She is the author of Apocalypse of Youth.9.Richard Bruce, holds a PHC Economics from UC Davis. He is a former Economics instructor at St. John’s University. He will comment on the increase of homelessness in the current US economy.10. Jeanne DeFazio holds a BA from UCDavis, an MAR in Theology from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary and an ELL credential. She is the editor of Apocalypse of Youth. Jeanne assisted Harriet Nesbitt (1996-1998) with her column Politics and Such. Jeanne also served as a patron for Mothers For More Halfway Houses benefits and encouraged philanthropists to support MMHH.