Man & Woman of the Year Campaign Hosts its Finale!
A Report
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Man & Woman of the Year (MWOY) Campaign kicked off in March 2011 with the nomination of twenty dynamic men and women and one honorary candidate all competing for the title of 2011 Man & Woman of the Year. The competition is judged solely on a philanthropic basis on their success in generating funds for LLS from the date of the Kick-off Celebration until Grand Finale.
The Grand Finale took place on May 13, 2011 at Hotel ZaZa with the twenty-one 2011 Man & Woman of the Year Candidates who did a phenomenal job during the past 10 weeks of raising an incredible $343,000. “Each of them also created incredible awareness for the mission of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society which is to cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma and improve the quality of life of patients and their families. We are so proud of all their hard work and their efforts to help save the lives of blood cancer patients everywhere,” says Elizabeth Weiss MWOY Campaign Manager.
The Candidates competing for Man & Woman of the Year are individuals from both the social and business communities who were motivated by supporting LLS and the visibility the campaign generates. Each candidate was unique and philanthropic with strong connections to the community and most importantly passionate about LLS. However, since the Man and Woman title is solely based on the highest amount of funds raised by the candidates the star for the grand finale was bagged by Houston Dynamo Soccer player Danny Cruz who was honored with the title 2011 Man of the Year and Woman of the Year was Lacey Dalcour Salas.
This year a new category of award was introduced by the committee. The Citizenship Award with three Awards: These awards seek to reward those Candidates who have advanced the efforts to cure blood cancers by making significant contributions through their MWOY campaigns by: Mission Integration; Volunteerism and Community Involvement. The winners for these catergories were Tim White for Mission Integration, Lacey Dalcour Salas for Volunteerism, and Ruchi Mukherjee for Community Involvement.
In this particular endeavor it can most definitely be stated that each candidate has been a star in their own way. Garage sales, cook offs, photo shoots, happy hours, date auctions and grand fashion shows, the 2011 Man & Woman of the Year candidates had gone all the way. Making headlines throughout the campaign for their extraordinary event planning were Mariam Habib of Lexis Florist fame, Mirror Mirror Host Rebecca Spera, Tim White, Cara Morales, and Danny Cruz.
The grand finale was a sold out event with candidates and their friends, family and supporters of LLS. Also present Dana Tyson, Boy and Girl of the Year Brendon and Emma along with nominating committee members Sonia Azad, Jared Lang, 2010 Woman of the Year Carol Colin Young, 2010 Man of the Year Rocky Harris, Evelyn Leightman, Billie Sue Parris, Laura LaRue, Dan D’Armond and other supporters. The evening was bustling with fabulous auction items provided by the candidates, entertainment by The Slags pepped up the ballroom with catchy numbers and cocktails and heavy appetizers kept the party going.
For more photos from the event visit our facebook page here.
[galleryview id=57 showPanels=true showCaptions=true showFilmstrip=true panelWidth=565 panelHeight=550 panelScale=nocrop transitionSpeed=800 transitionInterval=6000 fadePanels=true overlayPosition=top overlayOpacity=0.2 frameWidth=60 frameHeight=60 filmstripPosition=bottom pointerSize=6 frameScale=crop frameGap=5 frameOpacity=0.3 easingValue=swing navTheme=dark startFrame=1 pauseOnHover=true]
