Critically acclaimed, award-winning singer/songwriter Ginny Owens will be honored by the Nashville Mayor’s Advisory Committee for People with Disabilities at its 25th annual awards ceremony on Nov. 30, 2006. Appropriately, Owens also announces her latest project, a self-produced Christmas recording, Bring Us Peace, which will raise money for Fingerprint events in 2007.

The Mayor’s Advisory Committee for People with Disabilities annual recognition awards acknowledge outstanding individuals with disabilities as well as those who make a difference in the disability community. Owens is being honored in the category of Artist/Performer/Athlete. Last year’s recipient of this award was Drew Bennett of the Tennessee Titans.

“When I received the phone call that I’d won the Artist Award for the Mayor’s Council on Disabilities, I immediately said, ‘Are you sure? There must be some mistake,’” remembers Owens. “It is truly an honor to be encouraged for work I love doing anyway.” 

Continuing her outreach efforts into the new year, Owens has begun raising funds for Fingerprint Initiative events in 2007 with the release of Bring Us Peace, her first foray into holiday music.

Co-produced by Owens alongside friends Tony Lucido and Will Sayles, Bring Us Peace is an intimate, eclectic mix of original tracks and familiar tunes as well as some unexpected songs. From the Ray Charles-esque blues tune “Nothin’ for Christmas,” in which Owens pours out her Mississippi soul, to the angelic, a capella “Ave Maria,” arranged by Owens, this record delivers an extraordinarily unique listening experience for all.

“This might be my favorite project yet,” says Owens. “It is intimate, conversational, stylistically diverse, and really creative.  And more than this, it is my Christmas gift to all who will listen.  In a time when the world seems to be at war, Bring Us Peace is my humble and passionate prayer for all mankind.”

Available now at www.ginnyowens.com and after Dec. 1 at iTunes and P.J.’s Coffee stores (www.pjscoffee.com), fifty percent of the proceeds from Bring Us Peace will be donated to Fingerprint’s many service projects. For more information on Ginny Owens and the Fingerprint Initiative, visit: www.ginnyowens.com or www.fingerprintinitiative.com.

Ginny Owens won her first Dove Award in 2000 for New Artist of the Year, reflecting the success of her debut album, Without Condition. Her immediate acceptance among Christian and mainstream audiences prompted radio success as well as invitations to appear at Lilith Fair (1999), the Sundance Film Festival (2000), on National Public Radio, and at the White House South Lawn Tee Ball event. Songs written and performed by Owens have appeared on popular television shows such as “Felicity,” “Charmed,” “Roswell” and “Get Real.” Blind since the age of two, Owens originally wanted to teach, earning a Music Education degree from Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn. She launched the Fingerprint Initiative, in 2005 as an effort to be more hands on in her ministry and to “bring hope to the world, one touch at a time.”