Letter from our Executive Director
Jan Paul
What a Night! What a Year!
We talked about it for a year - our 30th anniversary. We celebrated it for a night - Cheers to 30 Years! What a great evening! Thank you to the nearly 160 alumni and guests who joined the celebration.
Friends old and new gathered under the twinkle lights on the Heritage Sandy Springs entertainment lawn. Almost every class was represented and it was great to see so many early alumni! One question was asked repeatedly..."Can we do this again soon?" Indeed!
What a remarkable 30th year! We kicked it off with a new LSS brand, logo and website. We launched Positive Leadership, a successful community leadership model. Our social and informative alumni events exceeded all expectations! We received a record number of applicants for the Class of 2018, which is the largest ever with 38 members. And, sincere thanks for your support of this year's alumni dues program-$30K for 30YRS. Your generosity helped us exceed our goal and provide alumni and class programs.
In a few weeks you will receive a short alumni survey to help us understand how we can better serve you and our community. Please take a few moments to answer and return the survey. We greatly value your input!
Have a wonderful summer and watch for notices about another alumni social. Let's have a do-over to bookend the summer!
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Volunteer for a Better Sandy Springs Day
Hit Record Numbers
We had an extremely successful
VBSS Day with nearly 6
00 volunteers on our
15th annual Volunteer
For A Better
Sandy Springs day.
Volunteers worked to enhance
22 nonprofit sites throughout the city.
Special thanks to Comcast and Northside Hospital for sending o
ver 100 volunteers EACH to contribute to this event.
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Cheers to 30 Years
Leadership Sandy Springs' Cheers to 30 Years party was a wonderful celebration under the stars and hanging lights with food, fun and fellowship to bring the organization's 30th anniversary year to a close.
With a live concert on the Entertainment Lawn of Heritage Sandy Springs, band "Old School" entertained the crowd and the dance floor was active. Special thanks to alumni, sponsors, host and planning committees for their support and help! And of course to HSS for the lovely venue. Attendees brought so many canned and boxed goods in support of the Community Assistance Center's summer lunch program that the collection barrel was overflowing!
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Honored: Patty Volez, Alumni of the Year. |
Class of 2012, for their work
both inside and outside LSS.
Please congratulate them for representing LSS
so well in the community. (Click on their names
for email).
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Class of 2018
There will be 38 great class members - our largest class to date. Check out the list
here
.
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Class of 2017 are Graduates!
Class of 2017 Graduation:
In the beautiful McDonough Hall of Holy Spirit Catholic Church, the wonderful class of 2017 bid farewell to their class year.
Class speaker (and class clown?) Fred Ferrand brought the house down with his hilarious address. We look forward to seeing the Class of 2017 alumni in leadership roles in LSS as well as throughout the city!
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Alumni Happenings
Board Tour of City Springs
12@12 in June
12@12: Alumni donors were notified of their lunch with CSM Bakery CEO Marianne Kirkegaard on
June 20th
. These exclusive meet-a-CEO programs are our thank you to our donors. Watch for the next one in the fall and be among the first 12 to sign up!
Summer Mixer
August Social: Mark your calendars for Thursday, August 17th for an evening event hosted by the Class of 2017. Details to come!
New LinkedIn Page
Introducing our new
company page. Our old group page will not have any more content and will close in August.
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Youth Leadership
Sandy Springs
Youth Leadership Sandy Springs graduated its sixth class in May with a terrific year of experiences, projects, collaboration and learning.
See below in Alumni Updates section for awards recently received by YLSS graduates.
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Alumni Spotlight
Tamara Carrera (Class of 1998)
Tamara Carrera has a long history of humanitarian, nonprofit management.
She is the CEO/Executive Director of the Community Assistance Center, the primary emergency assistance agency serving the cities of Sandy Springs and Dunwoody. She began her involvement with CAC in 1992 as a volunteer, and became its Executive Director in 1997.
Tamara holds a BA from Manhattanville College and an MBA with a concentration in Non-profit Management from Boston University.
She was the recipient of the Humanitarian Award from the City of Sandy Springs in 2012.
Here she shares her insights on community and LSS.
1. How did you become involved with Leadership Sandy Springs?
When I became Executive Director of CAC in 1997 the then president of Leadership Sandy Springs' Board of Trustees was on our Board and he made sure I was part of the class - Best idea ever!
2. What was your biggest takeaway from your class experience?
Community does not just happen, you make it happen. You get out as much as you put in.
3. What advice would you give new class members?
Find your passion, get involved and make a difference. When you look back on your life, significance will be a lot more relevant than just economics.
4.What advice would you give LSS alumni?
Remain involved, mentor someone. Leadership does not end, it evolves and hopefully becomes wisdom.
5. What has been the greatest value of your overall involvement with LSS?
Great friends and great leaders involved in the causes I care for.
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Diversity and Inclusion Event
A four-hour workshop was held at Lost Corner Preserve that taught 25 LSS alumni to recognize their cultural blind spots. Our expert facilitators guided discussion and left us looking at our community with fresh eyes. We will introduce this session to the class program in the fall.
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Movies by Moonlight 2017!
We've got our lineup ready - mark your calendars!
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Alumni Updates
Let us know when LSS Alumni are promoted or receive recognition so we can share with everyone.
Eileen Murphy (1987) has moved to College Park. She reports that, thanks to her LSS experience and training, she is now serving on the College park Planning and Zoning Board.
Stan Lefco (2003)
is now President of Lodge Carmel, Hebrew Order of David, a nonprofit, fraternal Jewish organization for men.
Margaret Shafer (2010) has moved to Houston, TX.
Debbie Sonenshine (2014)
was honored by the Atlanta Board of Realtors with the Platinum Phoenix award for 35 years of achievement as a Multi Million Dollar Producer and by Coldwell Banker metro Atlanta as the Top Team for 2016.
Rebekah Henry Murphy(2015)
is serving as President of the Junior League of Atlanta, Inc. for year 2017-2018
Mark Ferris (2016) is now
Senior Managing Director and Principal at Bridge Commercial Real Estate in Marietta. His new
email is
m.ferris@bridgeig.com
Youth Leadership Sandy Springs
Joshua Patton at North Springs Charter High School and
Jacob Buck at Mount Vernon Presbyterian School won the AJC Cup.
Natalie Casal was named valedictorian at Holy Spirit Preparatory School while several YLSS alumni were named salutatorians:
Lindsey Cohen at Riverwood International Charter School,
AJ and
Mia Whitney at Mount Vernon Presbyterian School.
Riverwood International Charter School senior
Natalie Peek earned her Gold Award, the highest Girl Scout honor. To earn the award, Natalie created an interdisciplinary lesson plan for literature and social studies classes addressing racism in today's society based on John Lewis' graphic novel, "March: Book One."
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Check out our Calendar
Never miss another LSS event!
Go to our
calendar webpage
and click the down arrow
above the month
to download all of our events to your calendar.
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