The Allen-Shore Center is located at 3900 Ford Road in Philadelphia and offers courses taught by Dr. Lena Allen-Shore. Dr. Lena Allen-Shore is the founder of the Lena Allen-Shore Center for the Advancement of Human Potential in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Philosopher, poet, writer and educator, Dr. Lena Allen-Shore is the author of 13 books and publications. She has composed over 100 songs including a cantata performed in Poland for the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. 

Dr. Lena Allen-Shore meets Pope John Paul II with her son, Jacques Shore.

Dr. Lena Allen-Shore combines knowledge of life with the art of communication. Her philosophy is the harvest of experience and study in various universities and cities of several countries. Her lectures and television appearances have earned her the praise of students and educational professionals. 

Lena Allen-Shore calls herself "just a little woman who dreams about a better world." What sets this woman apart is that she shares her dreams with the Pope. In 1978, just after Karol Wojtyla was elected Pope, Ms. Allen-Shore wrote a letter urging him to use his position to make a difference.

Ms. Allen-Shore also travelled to Jerusalem in 2000 when John Paul broke new ground in Catholic-Jewish relations, and to Assisi when the Pope and other leaders of world religions prayed for peace in 2002.

In a new book, Building Bridges, Ms. Allen-Shore tells her story of growing up in Poland, and of her relationship with the man she describes as "a man in white robes who is making a difference in the whole world."

Like the Pope, Ms. Allen-Shore -- who would say only that she's younger than John Paul, who is 83 -- is also a philosopher, and a Pole. But while he was studying for the priesthood in an underground seminary during the Second World War, her Jewish family was desperately trying to evade being shipped off to Auschwitz.

Despite the differences in their life stories, Ms. Allen-Shore says she and the Pope had a similar upbringing, and similar teachings on ethics, mythology and classical philosophy. "It didn't matter that he was going to a church and I was going to a synagogue."

In 1946, Ms. Allen-Shore and her husband, Sigmond, immigrated to Montreal, where they launched an import-export business and started a family. After 28 years in Canada, and her first husband's death, she moved to Philadelphia where she earned her doctorate in philosophy and established the Lena Allen-Shore Center for Human Potential. She has since authored 13 books, including works on the Holocaust and Rembrandt, and composed a variety of music, including a cantata performed at Auschwitz at a celebration of the liberation of the death camp.

Dr. Allen-Shore is the acclaimed author of the following:

• Bread and Peace
• Rendezvous with Love
• Man and his Aspirations
• The Little Shoes
• 40 Years of Darkness
• Ten Steps in the Land of Life
• Who Was Leonard DaVinci
• Art and Happiness
• Chagall
• Somewhere in Florence
  
• The Little Don Quixote
• Co-author of Roots and Wings.