The 2008 Outstanding Citizen Awards will be presented by the Evanston Community Development Corporation to Delores A. Holmes and William Logan, Jr. at the organization’s Annual Fundraiser on Saturday, March 1.
The event which includes cocktails at 5:30 pm and dinner at 6:30 pm will be held at the Unitarian Church, 1330 Ridge Ave., Evanston. Tickets are $125 per person and can be obtained by calling 847.756.0159.
The keynote speaker will be Clarence Jones, former speechwriter, legal counsel and close advisor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Jones has been twice recognized as Fortune Magazine’s “Business Man of the Month”. He partnered with Sanford I. Weill and Arthur Levitt, Jr. in the Wall Street investment banking firm Carter, Berlind & Weill. Mr. Jones has founded a number of successful financial, corporate and media-related ventures. Also he has provided strategic legal and financial consulting services to several governments around the world. He was the intermediary between the Government of Zaire and Muhammad Ali for the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle”.
Jones was selected as one of the 100 Future Leaders of America in 1972 and he received the Isaiah Award for Lifetime Achievement from the American Jewish Congress in 2006.
Delores A. Holmes, Alderman of Evanston’s Fifth Ward, is the co-founder of the Weissbourd-Holmes Family Focus Community Center and served as its executive director for 26 years. While at Family Focus, she created an innovative approach to a teen pregnancy prevention program. She is currently active in the League of Women Voters and Mount Zion M.B. Church. She was the co-founder of the Evanston Community Development Corporation.
William Logan, Jr. is co-founder of both the Chessmen Club of the North Shore (1958), the Fellowship of Afro-American Men (1967) and the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives(NOBLE) which now has more than 5000 members throughout the country. Logan served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. He later joined the Evanston Police Department and rose through the ranks to become the city’s first African-American police chief. He is currently president of the Evanston Community Development Corporation and a board member of the Evanston Parks and Recreation Department and Hospice of the Midwest.
Evanston Community Development Corporation is a community-based organization formed in 2003. ECDC serves as a catalyst for positive change on the city’s west side while ensuring current residents and business owners benefit from those changes. All proceeds benefit the efforts of the Evanston Community Development Corporation.