Raquel Castro of Worcester, Massachusetts, Advisor and Mentor, Dynamy Youth Academy, Dynamy.org, will be honored for her work as an advisor and mentor to at-risk teenagers. As a teen mom and Ecuadoran immigrant, Ms. Castro decided to teach, inspire, and help give direction to inner-city students, like her. She completed high school, won a scholarship to Worcester State University, and worked with AmeriCorps and the YMCA before joining the staff of Dynamy Youth Academy. In addition, she helped found the Coalition to Revitalize Education.

Joe McLaughlin of Allentown, Pennsylvania, Director of Youth Programs at the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services (CASES) in New York, Cases.org, will be honored for his work over the past twenty years with court involved young people.  Under Joe's leadership and guidance, CASES has created an array of innovative youth development programming including group counseling, art therapy, the nationally recognized Career Exploration Project, and education services.  Today, all young people served by CASES youth programs have access to support and services to help them increase academic skill levels, graduate from high school or earn their equivalency diplomas, and enroll in and support their efforts to pursue post-secondary education.  In addition to his work with young people n New York City, Joe serves on the Lehigh County Office of Children and Youth Services.

Robert J. McMahon of Glen Cove, New York, Executive Director, SCO Family of Services, SCO.org , will be honored for his nearly four decades serving New York’s most vulnerable children and families, providing them with the support and tools needed for a stable, healthy, and successful future. Throughout Mr. McMahon’s tenure, SCO has been at the forefront of direct child welfare service in addressing social problems as they emerge. He is a strong advocate for integrative community care and effective case management. Mr. McMahon has overseen the development of SCO as it has grown to become one of the largest, most diverse, and most respected child welfare agencies in the nation. It helps over 40,000 children and families in New York City and Long Island through a variety of services: family support, education, special needs, foster care, and homeless shelters.

Terrie Rose, PhD, LP of Edina, Minnesota, Founder and Executive Director, Baby’s Space, in Minneapolis, BabySpace.org, will be honored for her effective and innovative approach for supporting academic and social-emotional success of children and their families beginning at birth.  Dr. Rose created Baby's Space first in the American Indian community in Minneapolis to provide a holistic and effective response to limit the devastating effects of poverty on the development of babies and their families.

Dixie van de Flier Davis, EdD of Parker, Colorado, Founder, President, and Executive Director of The Adoption Exchange in Aurora,Adoptex.org, will be honored for her efforts to connect children who wait in foster care with families who seek to adopt. An innovator and visionary, Dr. van de Flier Davis has influenced child welfare in the following ways: she was one of the originating partners and the Principal Investigator of The Collaboration to AdoptUsKids; she is a founding member and past president of Voice for Adoption, a national advocacy organization;  and she has served as president of the national Adoption Exchange Association for 15 years. She is the author of Adoption: Stories of Lives Transformed.

Betty Wade Coyle of Norfolk, Virginia, Advocate for Children, Prevent Child Abuse Hampton Roads, UCantBeatKids.org, will be honored for her three decades of work on behalf of children. Ms. Coyle helped develop her city's comprehensive model program for serving high-needs children twenty years ago and she continues to participate both in the program's oversight and at its grassroots by serving on the community management team and on a case staffing team. She also helped create a resource clearing house and website, KidsPriorityOne.org, which provides information on children's issues, a community calendar of events, and a searchable database of over 1,000 regional child welfare organizations.

Vincent John Grippa III of Pembroke Pines, Florida, President, West Pembroke Pines Optimist, WestPinesffl.info, will be honored for his two decades of work using sports to help improve the lives of disadvantaged and/or disabled youth. Initially a sports coach with the organization he now heads, Mr. Grippa, in 2007, was instrumental in getting a baseball field specially built with a smooth rubberized surface so that disabled children could play on it. He has worked to provide Thanksgiving meals to the needy and Christmas gifts to foster children.

Damien Horne of Madison, Tennessee, Professional Musician, Concerts 4 A Cause, DamienHorne.com, will be honored for using his talents as a singer-songwriter, to raise funds for at-risk youth, as well as special-needs, hospitalized, and terminally ill children. Mr. Horne, a child of poverty and periods of homelessness as a young man, was inspired to use his talents to give back to children because non-profits like the Boys & Girls Club, the Salvation Army, and Covenant House helped him when he was down on his luck.

Frances A. Macon of Anchorage, Alaska, Licensed Foster Parent, State of Alaska/Division of Juvenile Justice, hss.state.ak.us, will be honored for her forty years of work with impoverished and troubled youth. In the 1950s, Mrs. Macon became the first black member of the Anchorage police department. In the 1960s, she founded a summer camp for poor children. In 1973, she became a licensed foster parent. In the late-1980s, she obtained special training to become a foster parent to male teenage sex offenders in the foster care system. She chose to provide guidance, love, and rehabilitation to teens that other adults did not want to help.

Jordyn Schara of North Freedom, Wisconsin, Teenager and Founder, Foundation for HOPE (Helping Our Peers Excel), Project READ (Reading Equipment for America’s Defenders), C4C (Comics for Change), and WI P2D2 (Wisconsin Prescription Pill and Drug Disposal), dosomething.org, will be honored for her various community service projects and the inspiration she provides to other teens to get involved. At age 14, she encouraged the city finance committee of Reedsburg, Wisconsin, to provide her with the funding she needed to publicize the proper disposal of outdated and unwanted prescription drugs (P2D2) in order to stop the contamination of drinking water, minimize teen drug use, and prevent teen overdose. At age 16, Ms. Schara lectures on behalf WI P2D2, the Foundation for HOPE, C4C, and Project READ.

New to the Awards program this year will be the David T. Kearns Award for Excellence and Innovation in Education. Named after the former CEO of Xerox Corporation and Assistant Secretary of Education, this important honor is intended to recognize distinguished leaders from the business community who have devoted extraordinary effort and resources to improving and expanding the education of American children and youth. The inaugural award will be given to Vincent Mai, Chairman of AEA Investors, Inc. and Chairman of the Board of Sesame Workshop, SesameWorkshop.org.

David T. Kearns Award for Excellence and Innovation in Education

Vincent Mai, Chairman of AEA Investors, Inc. and Chairman of the Board of Sesame Workshop, SesameWorkshop.org, will be honored for his lifelong fight to bring educational parity to at-risk, disadvantaged children in the United States and around the world. As a part of the non-profit Sesame Workshop since 1994, Mr. Mai has been involved in creating educational TV shows and specials to help at-risk, low-income preschoolers reach their full potential. During his tenure, Sesame Workshop has created programming for preschoolers about literacy, mental health, wellness including an initiative about healthy eating to combat childhood obesity, and coping with the absence of or injury to a military parent.

As part of the Awards, the NCLC also presents Distinguished Service Awards to business leaders and individuals in the public eye who have had a positive impact on the welfare of children and youth. This year’s recipients will be Andre Agassi, President and Founder of the Andre Agassi Foundation for Education; Stephen H. Spahn, Chancellor and Headmaster of The Dwight School in New York City for over 40 years; and Elaine Wynn, National Chairperson for Communities in Schools, and Director of Wynn Resorts, Limited.

Distinguished Service Award Honorees

Andre Agassi, President and Founder, Andre Agassi Foundation for Education, Las Vegas, Nevada, AgassiFoundation.org, will be honored for serving as a champion to the underprivileged, abused, or abandoned children in his home city of Las Vegas. Mr. Agassi’s Foundation is dedicated to transforming U.S. public education for underserved youth. The Foundation drives reform by engaging in practice, policy and partnerships that provide quality education and enrichment opportunities.  Through his Foundation, Mr. Agassi sponsors numerous programs including the Andre Agassi Boys & Girls Club of Las Vegas, offering educational, recreational, and social growth support to kids in one of the city’s most economically challenged neighborhoods; Child Haven, a residential facility for abused and neglected children; and the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy. Agassi Prep is a Kindergarten  through grade 12 public charter school serving students from low-income neighborhoods, which promotes small class sizes, advanced technology, extended hours, and a culture of respect to fight low expectations and improve skills.  In 2009 and 2010, the Academy’s entire graduating class received acceptance letters to colleges.

Stephen H. Spahn, Chancellor and Headmaster, The Dwight School, New York, New York, Dwight.edu, will be honored for his more than 40 years as an educator to pre-kindergarten through grade 12 students at The Dwight School.  Mr. Spahn is currently the longest-tenured headmaster in New York City’s independent schools.  His life’s work has been to inspire and bring out the “spark of genius” in every student, instill the importance of doing community service in the United States and around the world, and create a dialogue across world cultures.  An educational pioneer, Mr. Spahn brought the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Program, one of the most challenging and respected pre-university courses of study available anywhere in the world, to The Dwight School in the mid-1990s.  A leader in international education, The Dwight School draws students from all over the world with nearly 40 countries currently represented in its student body at its main campus in New York City.  Last year, under Mr. Spahn’s direction, The Dwight School provided $1.6M in scholarships to students with financial needs.  Mr. Spahn was a founding member of the Guild of International Baccalaureate Schools, and in 2001, he co-founded the Institute for Civic Leadership with his son, Kirk.

Elaine Wynn, National Chairperson, Communities in Schools, CommunitiesinSchools.org, and Director, Wynn Resorts, Limited, Las Vegas, Nevada, will be honored for her more than 15 years of advocacy for improvements in education provided to children and youth in her home state of Nevada and nationwide.  She is co-chair of the Greater Las Vegas After-School All Stars, afterschoolallstars.org, a nonprofit organization dedicated to keeping Las Vegas students safe and healthy by providing critically important after-school activities in education, sports, and the arts. As a member of the state Council to Establish Academic Standards for Public Schools, Mrs. Wynn helped develop measurable standards in the subjects of English, math, and science. She helped found the Nevada branch of Communities in Schools, and recently became the national chairperson for the national nonprofit that is dedicated to keeping children in school by fostering cooperative partnerships with other organizations to offer services including mentoring, tutoring, health care, and family counseling.  Also, Mrs. Wynn was recently appointed by Nevada’s governor as co-chair of a state task force charged with reforming Nevada public schools, a school system with one of the worst high school dropout rates in the country.

About Lewis Wickes Hine and the Lewis Hine Awards

Lewis Wickes Hine is well-known for his work photographing child labor practices. Beginning in 1908, Hine became a staff photographer for the NCLC with a difficult and unusual assignment. Often hiding his camera and tricking his way past bosses, Hine even learned to write with his hand inside his pocket in order to get accurate captions without giving himself away. His work—famously never touched up for effect—depicting children laboring in sweatshops, coal mines, textile mills, and on farms outraged the public and shamed the government into acting. His photographs provided the NCLC with the leverage it needed to advance the enactment of state and federal laws to protect the rights of children in the workplace, including the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which was the first major Federal child labor law ever enacted.

In the 1980s, to honor Hine’s work, the NCLC created an award in his name. Over the past two decades, more than 200 people have received the Lewis Hine Awards. The Awards recognize 10 individuals, both paid professionals and volunteers. Each award Honoree receives $1,000 and a trip to the Awards ceremony in New York City, accompanied by a guest.

David T. Kearns Award for Excellence and Innovation in Education is named for David T. Kearns who is considered “The Father of Public School Reform.” He is Chairman Emeritus of the New American Schools Corporation, a private, nonprofit, bipartisan organization established by American corporate and foundation leaders in 1991 to restore American education to world preeminence. Kearns was appointed by President George H.W. Bush as Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education and as White House liaison to help resolve the conflict in Los Angeles following the Rodney King riots. He was also a faculty member of Harvard University's Graduate School of Education where he taught for two years. He currently serves on the Executive Committee for the Harvard Project on Schooling & Children. Kearns has served on the board of trustees for the Ford Foundation, Time Warner, Dayton Hudson, and Ryder. He is also a former Chairman of the National Urban League.

Past recipients of the Distinguished Service Award include: Paul Allaire, Frank Bennack Jr., Geoffrey Boisi, Michael Bolton, Raymond Chambers, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Joan Ganz Cooney, Tipper Gore, David T. Kearns, Ann M. Marchetti, John McIvor, J. Richard Munro, Susan Saint James, Charles Schulz, William Steere, Laurie M. Tisch, and Janice Weinman.
Other past special honorees include: Karen Bass, Speaker of the California State Assembly; Harry Belafonte; Edward Lewis, Founder and Chairman of Essence; Deval L. Patrick, Executive Vice President, The Coca-Cola Company and Governor of Massachusetts; Diane Patrick, Partner, Law Firm Ropes & Gray and First Lady of Massachusetts; Hugh B. Price, President and CEO, National Urban League; Lisa Quiroz, Senior Vice President of Time Warner; Jorge Ramos of Univision Television Network; Dennis Walcott, NYC Deputy Mayor for Education and Community Development; Oprah Winfrey; and Raul Yzaguirre, President, National Council of La Raza.

About MetLife and MetLife Foundation:

MetLife, Inc. (NYSE: MET) is a leading global provider of insurance, annuities and employee benefit programs, serving 90 million customers in over 60 countries. Through its subsidiaries and affiliates, MetLife holds leading market positions in the United States, Japan, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East.
For more information, visit MetLife.com.

MetLife Foundation was established in 1976 by MetLife to carry on its longstanding tradition of corporate contributions and community involvement. Grants support health, education, civic and cultural programs. For more information, visit MetLife.org.

CONTACTS:

Joyce Appelman
NCLC Lewis Hine Awards
516-482-1016
greatappel@aol.com

Sarah Faria
MetLife
401-827-3906
sfaria@metlife.com

To learn more about this year’s awards or to speak with any of the Honorees, the LHA Chair, or the NCLC Committee’s Chairman and the Executive Director, contact Joyce Appelman, 516-482-1016 or at greatappel@aol.com.

Photographs of the Honorees are available. Please visit 2011 Lewis Hine Awards

For more information on The National Child Labor Committee’s Lewis Hine Awards, please visit About Lewis Hine Awards

Download 2011 Press Kit

2011 Lewis Hine Award Chairs & Honorees

Previous Lewis Hine Award Chairs & Honorees

About the Lewis Hine Awards