Members of the New York Women's Agenda gathered over breakfast to honor exceptional women leaders and activists at the New York Marriott Marquis Tuesday.

Award-winning journalist Roz Abrams hosted the annual Star Breakfast put on by NYWA, a coalition of professional women's organizations founded in 1992.

Linda Fairstein, a former chief sex crimes prosecutor with the New York County District Attorney's Office and a best selling crime novelist, received the coalition's Lifetime Achievement Award. Fairstein has published a series of 12 crime novels, which have been translated in more than a dozen languages. Her thirteenth book, "Silent Mercy," will be published March 2011.

Past recipients of NYWA's Lifetime Achievement Award include Barbara Walters in 2008 and Jane Fonda in 2009. New York Country District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. presented the award to Fairstein.

Three women received 2010 Star awards: Patricia Lancaster, the president and CEO of The Lancaster Group and the first woman to serve as commissioner of the New York City Department of Buildings; Michelle Y. Lee, a recognized pioneer of financial literacy and the northeast regional president for community banking with Wachovia, a Wells Fargo Company; and Kathy Sloane, the senior vice president and managing editor of Brown Harris Stevens and a property guru, who sold more than $1 billion in New York real estate throughout her career.

In the brief award acceptance speeches, the 2010 Star recipients shared bits of their stories that brought them to the podium.

Lancaster described riding her horse in the cold temperatures of Alberta, Canada as a young girl, an experience that helped draw Lancaster to the rugged world of the construction industry.

Lee, who attended the Boston Conservatory of Music, shared her dreams of being a professional singer as a student -- but instead, upon graduation, ended up working at Dunkin' Donuts. After six months, she got a job as a bank teller, where she spent a lot of time with a chain-smoking coworker named Patti, who shared what she knew about the backstage of the banking operation with Lee, drawing her to the profession.

Sloane ended up working in publishing after graduating from college -- that is, until she fell in love with a physician and traded her life in New York for Kentucky. She then got involved in preserving historical buildings in her town, real estate work that has led her back to dealing with New York properties.

Three 2010 Rising Stars were also recognized at the breakfast. They were: Lauren Bush, the CEO and co-founder of Feed Projects, a charitable company that creates products to feed children across the world; Saranne Rothberg, co-founder of The ComedyCures Foundation, which strives to bring humor to ill and underserved patients; and Rothberg's daughter Lauriel Harte Marger, 17, who launched a human rights' singing group, The Bonde, and has been named a United Nations Youth Advisor.

Andy Davis, the founder and president of Music Empowers Foundation, shared the stage with the ladies that were recognized at the NYWA breakfast. He was the recipient of a 2010 Honorable MEN-tion award. Music Empowers Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing music programs and instruction to children.

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