Winners of Inaugural SoLo Achievement Awards Named
For Immediate Release:
9/26/2006
South Louisville is enriched by an array of individuals and organizations who are committed to the neighborhoods and people of the community. To recognize some of the best and brightest, Sts. Mary & Elizabeth Hospital President Tom Gessel announced the winners of the first South Louisville Achievement Awards today, including UPS, DeSales High School, Americana Community Center, ValuMarket, basketball great Lisa Harrison, Carmen and Charles Miller, and the late Tom R. Thieneman, Sr. “When Sts. Mary & Elizabeth launched this new, annual series of awards to recognize outstanding contributions to South Louisville, we thought we had a pretty good idea about many of the nominations we would receive, but we were absolutely thrilled to gain a much more in-depth appreciation for our more well-known nominees, and to be introduced to so many more of our communities’ amazing contributors,” Gessel said. “Our review and selection process was difficult, but we are grateful for every nominee’s contributions and trust we will be able to call much-deserved attention to their works in future SoLo Awards years.”
“Truly, the level of commitment to Louisville’s South End by our first annual SoLo Awards winners is worthy of city-wide recognition,” said Steve Sexton, President of Churchill Downs and 2006 SoLo Achievement Awards Chairman. “The entire metro area benefits from the gifts our honorees freely offer their communities in terms of their time, talent, and support.”
The 2006 SoLo Awards honorees were feted at a luncheon in their honor on Tuesday, September 26, in the Triple Crown Room at Churchill Downs. At the luncheon, each honoree received a custom, etched-glass plate depicting the SoLo Awards logo, which is a stylized representation of the Sts. Mary & Elizabeth Hospital Sky Chapel arches. In addition, SoLo Junior Citizen Award winner Chase Lloyd received a $1,500 scholarship toward post-secondary education. The winners and categories of the first annual SoLo Awards are:
Large Business: UPS, which employs more than 7,150 residents of the South End, sponsored Global Volunteer Week in October 2005, during which 3,386 employees and their families volunteered 30,972 hours in nine days at local agencies and organizations that serve the area’s neediest populations. Also, nearly 11,000 students have participated in UPS’ Metropolitan College Program, and as part of its School to Work program, UPS hired nearly 650 students from South Louisville high schools this spring.
Small Business: ValuMarket, which promotes a strong sense of community and family in the many multinational neighborhoods surrounding its Iroquois location by promoting, sponsoring and planning several community events, including the ValuMarket run/walk and World Fest, which brings together tens of thousands of area residents to enjoy food and activities with an international flavor.
Individual: State Representative and former Pleasure Ridge Park High School Principal Charles Miller and his wife, Friends of Southwest Regional Library President Carmen Miller, together and individually, have been community leaders and volunteers in numerous South Louisville projects, including Riverside, the Farnsley-Moreman Landing and several other non-profit organizations and educational institutions.
Education: St. Francis DeSales High School instituted the innovative “teach-nology” program in 2003 to provide a laptop computer for every student and teacher and install a wireless computer network throughout campus, as well as to provide professional training for faculty to implement the new technology. DeSales raised more than $300,000 to support the program, and is a two-time nominee for the Top TeN Award celebrating outstanding achievements in technology in the greater Louisville region. The school is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
Sports/Recreation: Lisa Harrison, a graduate of Southern High School, was named High School Player of the Year by Parade magazine in 1989 and inducted into the Kentucky High School Athletics Hall of Fame in 2001. After graduating from the University of Tennessee, where she was a member of the women’s basketball team that won the NCAA Women’s Division I Basketball Championship, she played in the American Basketball League for three seasons. She was drafted by the WNBA in 1999, and played for Phoenix Mercury for six seasons.
Not-for-Profit/Government: Americana Community Center, which provides a spectrum of services, including programs to address educational, health and economic needs, to help ease the transition of immigrant and refugee families into America and the Louisville area. Among other programs, the Center offers a mobile health clinic, adult education courses and youth after-school programs.
SoLo Junior Citizen: Chase Lloyd, an incoming senior and a role model at St. Francis DeSales High School, has volunteered more than 100 hours to his school, church and community while attending DeSales, was selected to attend the National Catholic Youth Conference and the Christian Leadership Institute, and raised his own money to travel on an Archdiocese of Louisville trip to Mississippi to help Hurricane Katrina victims during spring break.
SoLo Tribute Award: the late Tom R. Thieneman, Sr. was a home-builder and community leader whose contributions included founding of the Pleasure Valley Lions Club, offering financial support to The Family Place, involvement in The Joseph Project to help Hurricane Katrina victims and membership on the founding board of trustees of Southwest Jefferson Community Hospital.
Sts. Mary & Elizabeth Hospital is a service of Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s HealthCare (JHSMH). JHSMH is a regional health care network that includes 70 health care facilities and 1,900 patient beds in Kentucky and southern Indiana. The merger of Jewish Hospital HealthCare Services and CARITAS Health Services to form JHSMH combines the strength and honors the heritages of the two organizations to provide a complete array of health care services to this region and beyond, including: hospitals, emergency air ambulance services, outpatient care, nursing home care, occupational health, psychiatric care and rehab medicine. JHSMH provides home health care to families in 41 Kentucky and southern Indiana counties, occupational health mobile services to 30 Kentucky counties and employs a network of physician practices that provide both primary and specialty medical care. The organization employs more than 8,100 people. ###
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