The 11th Annual Youth Advocacy Awards Dinner

was held on June 9th, 2010

at the Four Seasons Hotel, Chicago

For more than a decade, UCAN has been hosting its annual Youth Advocacy Awards Dinner, an evening dedicated to the academic and personal achievements of UCAN's youth, where guests have the chance to learn more about UCAN and to see our vision come to life:  Youth who have suffered trauma can become our future leaders. These celebrations have been wonderful over the years, but this past event - complete with friends, family, inspirational stories and a record-breaking financial success - may have topped them all. To date, we are thrilled to announce we have raised $703, 482! Thank you to those of you who helped us reach this goal.

It was truly an extraordinary evening- guests enjoyed a cocktail reception, silent auction, and dinner, followed by acceptance speeches by our award winners. We were thrilled to have U.S. Cellular once again partner with us for this fabulous event and pleased with the chance to salute a great champion of UCAN, retired CEO of U.S. Cellular- Jack Rooney, for his unwavering commitment to our programs and vision. We also had the opportunity to pay tribute to Richard Driehaus, this year's Corporate Honoree, for his philanthropy and his commitment to giving back to the community.

The true purpose of the Youth Advocacy Awards Dinner is to recognize the terrific young women and men who are part of UCAN. Our impressive scholarship recipients Eddie Bland IV, Johnetta Fort, Shena Jones, Christopher McCollum Jr. and Andrew Zoll, in addition to our 2010 John E. Rooney Dynamic Scholar Greishen Rodriguez, have worked hard to overcome obstacles and give us real hope that our future is in capable hands.  To read more about this year's award winners, please click here. 

The event was generously emceed once again by Ms. LeeAnn Trotter of NBC5 Chicago, and for the second year in a row, Jeff and Julie Diermeier acted as the chairs of this event.  Our esteemed Vice Chairs included Yasmin Bates-Brown, Keith Cardoza, Chris Gardner, Ron Gidwitz, John E. Rooney, Kai Sotorp and David Vitale.  Thank you to both Michael McDermott and UCAN's own Uhlich Voices for providing the wonderful musical entertainment!

For more information on this year's Sponsors and Partners, please click here.