Georgia Leaders Honored As Revolutions Award Recipients at 2009 Nonprofit Summit
On May 12th, the Georgia Center for Nonprofits announced the winners of the prestigious Revolutions Awards at the 18th Annual Nonprofit Summit at AmericasMart. These winners included Christina Lennon, Skyland Trail, Usher Raymond IV and Ingrid Saunders Jones.
Atlanta, GA (PRWEB) May 22, 2009
On May 12th, the Georgia Center for Nonprofits announced the winners of the prestigious Revolutions Awards at the 18th Annual Nonprofit Summit at AmericasMart. These winners included Christina Lennon, Skyland Trail, Usher Raymond IV and Ingrid Saunders Jones.
"The purpose of these awards is to acknowledge, recognize and celebrate revolutionary and innovative leaders and organizations within Georgia's nonprofit sector. These Revolutions awards winners are examples of what truly inspires and motivates our community everyday and reminds us why we do the work we do," says Karen Beavor, President and CEO of Georgia Center for Nonprofits.
These honors were bestowed to the following:
2009 Revolutions Award for Outstanding Nonprofit Leader to Christina Lennon, Executive Director of the Georgia Lions Lighthouse Foundation, for her work in providing vision and hearing services through education, detection, prevention and treatment for Georgians. During her three-year term at the Georgia Lions Lighthouse Foundation, she has taken the 57-year-old organization strained by increasing demand and a diminishing donor base and turned it around by establishing robust relationships with foundations and by re-vamping programs. These efforts have resulted in an increase of providing eye exams and eyeglasses from 400 to 4,000 people a year, decreasing costs from $100 per pair of eyeglasses to $25 per pair, and doubling the number of surgeries.
2009 Revolutions Award for Outstanding Nonprofit Organization to Skyland Trail for promoting recovery from mental illness and fostering reintegration into the community, while empowering adults to live with dignity and independence. Before Skyland Trail opened its doors in 1989, Georgians with mental illnesses faced a void as they tried to bridge the gap between hospitalization and returning to community life. Skyland Trail is unique to Atlanta with its holistic approach of providing residential communities and individualized treatment programs including 'recovery communities' support systems comprised of 10 to 15 clients with similar diagnoses and its full-time on-site primary healthcare clinic. Through academic involvement, educational support, volunteerism, internships and employment, Skyland Trail clients gain practical working skills that allow them to reintegrate back into the community.
2009 Revolutions Emerging Philanthropist Award to Usher Raymond IV, Chairman and Founder of Usher's New Look, for his leadership in reaching youth from diverse socio-economic backgrounds and providing them a chance to learn about the business side of the entertainment industry. In the past four years, New Look has mentored over 1,300 disadvantaged youth from across the country through Camp New Look. In addition Usher launched the "I Can't But You Can" voter registration campaign geared towards youth ages 17 and under where participants completed educational curriculum on the voting process before going out into the community to register first-time voters. In recognition of these efforts, he was asked to testify before Congress in support of legislation encouraging youth service engagement.
2009 Revolutions Award for Legendary Philanthropic Leader to Ingrid Saunders Jones, Senior Vice President of Global Community Connections at The Coca-Cola Foundation, for her leadership of The Coca-Cola Company's global community engagement function which works to make a unique and sustainable difference. Under her leadership, The Coca-Cola Foundation has contributed more than $256 million to education and other community initiatives. A teacher by training, Ms. Jones' commitment to education and community development extends beyond the doors of the Coca-Cola corporate headquarters. She is a board member of Clark Atlanta University, the Carter Center, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, The Ohio State University President's Council on Women and the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University.
More details on these outstanding winners can be found on the Georgia Center for Nonprofits website at http://www. gcn. org/Services/GeorgiaNonprofitSummit/RevolutionsAwards2009.aspx (http://www. gcn. org/Services/GeorgiaNonprofitSummit/RevolutionsAwards2009.aspx)
About the Georgia Center for Nonprofits
The Georgia Center for Nonprofits works to serve, strengthen and support nonprofit organizations, by providing them with the resources and tools they need to be most effective; promoting partnerships between nonprofits and foundations, businesses and government to meet critical needs; and helping state and local policy-makers and the public understand and support the work of nonprofits. More information can be found at www. gcn. org
Contact: Lynne Norton, Marketing Manager 678-916-3066 or ln(at)gcn. org.
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