Celebration of Family 2009

Last night was our Celebration of Family gala at the Crystal Tea Room. The party was well-attended and it looked like a good time was had by all. Ron and Suzanne Naples were our honorees. And Clarence and Denise McGregor Armbrister were the recipients of our Alison Award. A special touch was having Mayor Michael A. Nutter come out to share a few words about our honorees. We thank him for taking time out of his busy schedule to honor the Naples and the Armbrister's in such a personal way. Vai Sikahema, Steve Highsmith and Stan Hochman did a great job keeping the event moring along.

Again, we'd like to thanks our sponsors: Wendy's, Wawa, Wyeth, Sunoco Logistics, PECO, Independence Blue Cross, Quaker, GreenbergTraurig, Consulting Services of Princeton, Margaret G. Jacobs Charitable Trust. Our volunteers from Independence Blue Cross and Aetna did a fantastic job, thanks to each and every one of you. We also thank all those who donated items for the auctions and all those happy shoppers!

A special thanks to Chris Marrero, our photographer for the evening. He captures special events and specializes in fine art portrait photography. See more of the night's photos on our social network site.

A Busy Spring!

We've been very busy here at the Center this past month. We've had two successful match parties on both sides of Pennsylvania. Each match party also had two accompanying pre-events which served to introduce the youths participating with each other and us, exercise our active listening skills and work on being comfortable with their stories and themselves. If you haven't gotten to participate yet, don't worry, we have another match party at the end of May and more in the works! We'll keep you posted on the details.

This Wednesday we have our Annual Celebration of Family. Ron and Suzanne Naples are our honorees. Ron has just been appointed by Governor Edward Rendell as chief accountability officer for Pennsylvania’s stimulus-related efforts. He is the former CEO and current chairman of Quaker Chemical Corporation. Suzanne is a former Center board member. They have adopted from the foster care system. This year's Alison Award will be presented to Clarence and Denise Armbrister who adopted two children, a sibling group, from foster care. The Alison Award captures the spirit of Alison, the first child with Down syndrome, for whom the Center found a family. There are still tickets available, if you'd like to come. Call or email our office for more information.

Behind the scenes we have new interns with us for the summer, four have already started and we eagerly await 3 more! We love having the infusion of energy the interns bring and the new ideas and input on how to get the job done! Our social network site launched and we are also getting ready to relaunch our Freddie Mac Foundation's Wednesday's Child site. A fresh look for this new season!

We hope you're having a productive and exciting spring too!