On Thursday May 12th, we held our annual charity reception at Luca Osteria & Bar in Oak Brook. As we wrap up our 28th year, we wanted to recognize the hard work of board members, contributing donors and most importantly, we presented our charity partners their fundraising checks. It was great to get together and celebrate all of the success we were still able to have in such a tough year!
One for the Kids President, Tim O’Malley started off the night with some kind words of appreciation for everyone in the room. Yes, everyone was in one room together not a Zoom room, which felt pretty awesome.
Paul Windsor introduced our partner charity, Special Olympics Chicago. Although the last year threw many curve balls, Special Olympics Chicago was extremely creative with still keeping their athletes engaged. In fact, they were able to host many virtual cooking and art classes and even had a virtual polar plunge. With your support, we were able to continue helping these athletes and hopefully this year beings even more in person competitions and engagements!
Next up, Billy Bracken introduced Doug Hutchings from Advocate Children’s Hospital. It was wonderful hearing how much our supporters are helping the tiny patients at Advocate especially during COVID. The doctors, nurses and staff at Advocate have been absolutely incredible throughout this process and we feel lucky to be able to contribute to their great mission.
This year’s “Step-Up” awards were given to Mike Magnusson and Rob Pavetto for an incredible execution of our 2020 Curve Ball event and Kevin Kickels for all of his hard work with our Golf Outing over the last several years.
To close out the presentations, Chris Orvino was chosen to talk about what One for the Kids means to him. “I hope to be apart of this organization for many, many years to come and look forward to continuing our motto of having a great time for a great cause.”
We also wanted to give a shout-out to our junior board, Not Your Father’s Foundation, a OFTK charity. Thank you for all of your support at our events – the younger generation of OFTK is doing great things!
And of course, the crew closed down the restaurant because why end a Wednesday night before 10pm? Cheers!