Boys & Girls Club announces award-winners

On Jan. 25, the Boys & Girls Club of Elgin held its annual Distinguished Citizens Dinner highlighting area leaders within the community.

For the third year in a row, the organization held its event at the Marriott in Hoffman Estates. The organization chose to move this event outside of Elgin last year because there was no local venue that could hold the number of guest attending the event. This year, the event welcomed more than 350 people, the most ever, for an evening of dinner and dancing.

The organization recognizes various individuals and corporations for their commitment to service within the Elgin area.

The Boys & Girls Club of Elgin would again like to recognize those individuals listed below:

• Marie Yearman Volunteer of the Year Award, sponsored by Comcast: Becky Vento

• 2007 Distinguished Citizen, sponsored by Lamp Inc.: Al and Janine Kirkland

• 2007 Distinguished Corporate Citizen, sponsored by Shales McNutt Construction: General Mills

• 2007 Staff Member of the Year: Jim Chambers

• 2007 Founders Awards: Mike Anderson and Mike Origer

The highlight of the evening each year, however, is the last award -- the Youth of the Year.

Youth of the Year is Boys & Girls Clubs of America's premier youth recognition program for club members.

Locally, the Boys & Girls Club of Elgin has worked to increase participation in this program within the past few years. This transformation began with the sponsorship of the program by the Elgin Breakfast Rotary Club. This year marks the second year that the Elgin Breakfast Rotary Club will act as the sponsor.

Members who are participating in the program work for months on writing essays, developing their speeches, and practicing public speaking. They then visit the Rotary Club at one of their meetings to take part in the local competition.

This competition includes each young person giving a speech on "What the club means to me" and writing two essays.

The Rotary Club is then responsible for the daunting task of selecting one of the youth to be named the Youth of the Year. Once selected, the winner is announced at the annual Distinguished Citizens Dinner held in January. That young person also represents the local club at the state competition held in Springfield in April.

For the first year, this award was named after the late Marisa Martinez. Marisa was a young person who volunteered throughout the community.

Despite the challenge of living her life in a wheelchair, she was dedicated to her family, the community and loved working with young people, including kids at the club. In 2005, she died at the young age of 23. Her commitment to become a productive and contributing young person made her the perfect person to recognize.

The 2007 Youth of the Year was Citlalit Cantor.

The Boys & Girls Club of Elgin thanks all of the participants and award winners who made this event possible.

For information about the event and the award winners, call Alan Brostoff at (847) 608-5017, ext. 3.