Kidsbridge was excited to present our Eleventh Annual Kidsbridge Humanitarian Awards and Celebration on Thursday, November 9, 2017. The Trenton Country Club provided the backdrop once again, as Kidsbridge proudly presented a diverse and deserving group of honorees.
The 2017 Honorees
Lenora M. Green
As the Executive Director of the ETS Center for Advocacy and Philanthropy, Lenora M. Green oversees philanthropy, social investment, community relations and employee engagement. She also focuses on education advocacy by building and managing strategic relationships and collaborations with key national, regional and local organizations that promote educational improvement initiatives for disadvantaged groups in order to further ETS’s mission of advancing quality and equity in education. Among the Center’s objectives are to use philanthropy and advocacy to help mitigate educational challenges for disadvantaged populations and to identify, support and help replicate programs that are achieving results. She also serves as an appointed member of the Executive Steering Committee of the ETS Diversity and Inclusion Council.
Investors Bank
Led by senior management team committed to serving others, Investors continues to grow while remaining focused on its roots as a local community bank. As one of the bank’s four core values, community is about caring for its customers, employees and the people and businesses in the local neighborhood it serves. Investors’ team members volunteer their time and talents, while the bank and its foundations provide the financial support to help businesses and communities grow and prosper.
In 2016, our foundations awarded more than $8 million to nonprofit organizations in the communities we serve. As part of our commitment to Mercer County, we’ve supported local causes such as: Kidsbridge, Homefront Food Pantry, Trenton YMCA, and the Boys and Girls Club of Mercer County. However, giving back to the community means much more than writing checks.
Investors’ employees work at the Mercer Street Friends Food Bank, participate in fund-raising walks for the American Heart Association, the March of Dimes, and Lupus and teach financial literacy at local schools throughout the state. Investors is a model of what a true Community Bank should be – a good corporate citizen with a tradition of ‘giving back’ at the heart of everything it does.
Christiana Foglio Palmer
Christiana Foglio is all about impact investing – finding creative ways to merge public funding and private capital to invest in making communities better. Her motto is to not only do well, but do good.
Chris specializes in building senior and multi-family housing that reflects each community’s vision, needs, and character. She founded Community Investment Strategies in 1994, and as a successful entrepreneur, she’s grown her company’s diverse portfolio to include more than 3,000 apartment rental units valued at over $400 million. CIS is a regular annual contributor to Kidsbridge.
Princeton Regional Chamber of Commerce
Started in 1960, the Princeton Regional Chamber of Commerce has grown to become the largest Chamber of Commerce in Mercer County and in Central New Jersey and the third largest Regional Chamber in the State. The Chamber’s outreach covers five counties, representing more than 1300 companies in Central New Jersey with over 5,000 individual contacts. The Chamber represents businesses employing over 250,000 employees with one of the largest footprints in New Jersey.
The Chamber has built eight distinctive business groups designed to serve the diverse business segments that their members represent including: Women in Business, Real Estate, Independent Businesses, International Business, Young Professionals, Non Profits, Technology and the Princeton Mercer Convention & Visitors Bureau. The Chamber continues to expand its membership and is focused on its mission of: Serving its members, Speaking for Business and promoting an environment for business growth.
Peter Crowley, the Chamber’s President and CEO, has led the Princeton Regional Chamber since 2009. Peter and the Chamber have been long time supporters of Kidsbridge and fully support the Kidsbridge mission of “embracing empathy, diversity appreciation and respect for all persons”.
2017 Photo Gallery
Photos by Cie Stroud: Web Site / Facebook Blog
