2016 Volunteer Awardees
On Thursday, February 9, 2017, The Carl & Roberta Deutsch Foundation honored the 2016 HALO Award Winners at an annual Luncheon at the historic Marion Davies Beach House in Santa Monica. Despite uncharacteristically cold and cloudy Southern California weather, it was a day full of joyful celebration, recognizing some of the most inspiring volunteer “angels” in our community. The 2017 HALO Award Luncheon was an exciting celebration of individuals and organizations who go above and beyond to serve their community.
Of the 113 total applications received, a Selection Committee, comprised of local nonprofit and foundation leaders, selected six Los Angeles-based nonprofit organizations to be the recipients of a $25,000 grant - $20,000 for the nonprofit to strengthen its volunteer program and $5,000 to a nominated volunteer to honor his or her outstanding service to the organization.
Lake Avenue Community Foundation
The 2016 awardees, which include Centinela Youth Services, Foothill Unity Center, human-I-T, Lake Avenue Community Foundation, Public Counsel, and Strength United, were officially announced last November, but came together for the first time at the Luncheon to celebrate and publicly recognize their nominated volunteers. Collectively, these volunteers have volunteered over 27,000 hours of service between 2002 and 2016.
Team Rubicon
This year, guests and awardees were gifted with an inspiring message honoring volunteerism from Team Rubicon, a nonprofit organization that utilizes the skills of military veterans to deploy disaster response teams. Jake Wood, Co-Founder and CEO, Michael Davidson, Training Cadre & Programs Associate, Todd DeVoe, Volunteer Leader, and Rick Lambert, Volunteer Leader shared their personal journeys of navigating life after years of military service and how they have found a new sense of community, purpose, and identity through volunteering with Team Rubicon. Since the organization's founding in 2011, Team Rubicon has responded to over 100 disasters and grown from eight to 35,000 volunteer members.
Kathleen Buczko, formerly with Good Shepherd Shelter, 2014 HALO Winner (left)
Kait Peters, The People Concern, 2015 HALO Winner (right)
Immediately following the Luncheon, organizations wasted no time kicking-off their year of capacity building support, the third piece of the HALO Award, and convened for a program orientation. At the orientation, the newest awardees had the opportunity to learn from and be encouraged by a panel of past HALO awardees, Kathleen Buczko and Kait Peters. Over the next year, the six organizations will receive support in the form of peer networking sessions and one-on-one coaching led by the Foundation and Blue Garnet, a strategy and management firm for social change organizations, to assist in developing a volunteer management plan to enhance organizational capacity around volunteerism.
The Carl & Roberta Deutsch Foundation looks forward to an amazing 6th year of the Halo Award!