Announcing the 2024 Awards Honorees
Honoring Changemakers at the 2024 Awards
Each year, Bright Promises recognizes and celebrates individuals and organizations whose commitment to Chicagoland children and youth is a model and inspiration for others. Honorees are exemplary leaders in service to Chicagoland communities who have contributed to notable improvements in the lives of children and youth. These inspirational community leaders demonstrate a deep commitment to creating opportunities for every young person to live a better life and have a brighter future.
This year's award recipients will be honored at Bright Promises 2024 Awards on Wednesday, October 23rd from 6:00-9:00pm at Wildman BT (3020 W. Carroll Ave.) Event details and registration available here.
Selecting the Honorees
This year's honorees were chosen by the 2024 Awards Selection Committee through a competitive public nomination process. We offer our sincere gratitude to the 2024 Awards Selection Committee for their time and careful consideration of this year's nominees. Thank you to:
Adam Alonso, BUILD Inc.
Shilpa Bavikatte, Crown Family Philanthropies
Nick Bruce, Wintrust
Aimee Hilado, University of Chicago
Announcing the 2024 Awards Honorees
Eva Giglio - 2024 Community Impact Award
In her role leading CME Group Foundation, Eva has been transformative in bringing resources to west and south side communities. In particular, she has brought funders together to highlight the crisis in girls' mental health and directed investments to support family mental wellness in Englewood.
Eva Giglio joined CME as the Executive Director of the CME Group Foundation in 2021. She brings over a decade of experience working in education and enhancing the lives of Chicago’s youth. She most recently served as the Deputy Chief of Staff in Chicago Public Schools, where she led the district’s strategic vision and improvement planning, with a focus on creating more equitable outcomes for students. In this role, she also co-led the Mayor’s Pre-K through 12 Reopening Schools Task Force during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to that she served as a Director in the Chief Education Office of CPS, where she was responsible for creating systems to better support schools and engage critical stakeholders. With a lifelong passion for education, Eva started her career as a middle and high school Spanish teacher at Kenwood Academy in Chicago.
In addition to education, Eva is passionate about equity in access to resources for families with children in Chicago. She serves as a Board Member for Share Our Spare, which helps provide diapers and essentials to families in need.
Arely Barerra - 2024 Elevating Youth Voices Award
Arely Barrera, Palenque LSNA’s Youth Organizer, grew up in Logan Square participating in Palenque’s programming. Every year Arely hires and trains over one hundred local youth to ask big questions about the kind of world and community that would make their lives better, more just, filled with love and safety.
Through her guidance youth have gotten involved in abolitionist campaigns in our city to redirect resources from police to actual social and emotional supports, to fight for policies that will protect and create affordable housing for all, and education justice in our schools. Arely is a serious practitioner of Popular Education, --one of her greatest gifts is writing lesson plans and editing curriculum that help young people understand the systems of oppression and cultures of resistance present in their own lives and histories in order to move them to strategic action and healing.
Her latest popular education project, called "Where Am I Now," has two aims: 1) engage a racially/culturally diverse group of high schoolers around their questions and feelings about the 45,000 new arrivals from South America in order to develop empathy and solidarity by telling and listening to one another's stories, 2) design a learning tool for classroom teachers to allow them to engage their students in discussions the histories of migrations and the need for us all to belong to a collective all in search of making life better for themselves and all Chicagoans.
Sherneron Hilliard - 2024 Champion for Children Award
Hilliard’s career since 1998 has been in service to Chicago and NE Illinois nonprofits, starting out as a youth and family therapist and progressing to social work coordination, program development and site director. Hilliard is now Senior VP of Programs and Impact for Family Focus, with oversight of 350 program staff and all government grants and contracts for services to 20,000 people each year. Her life’s work has had the most impact in eleven communities served by Family Focus across NE Illinois, from South Holland to Aurora to Highland Park.
Hilliard’s contributions and experience have been key to programs and services planning and implementation during and after the historic merger in 2021 of Chicago Child Care Society and Family Focus. This joining of missions to serve children, youth and families created an agency with 12 locations, $31 million budget and 410 team members. She is solely accountable for all program quality, delivery and evaluation.
As a larger more sustainable agency, Hilliard took advantage of opportunities for program expansion in home visiting, doula services, and immigrant services. She led trauma informed care training with staff to build a comprehensive theory of Healing Care and Practices for participants throughout the agency, including how we care for staff members and their secondary trauma. She responds to the needs of the community by developing targeted programs that address critical issues such as grandparents raising grandchild and a job readiness program, creatively collaborating with other organizations such as City Colleges of Chicago and agencies serving incarcerated men and women.
She has shown exceptional leadership in developing and implementing programs, such as restorative justice structures, early childhood initiatives, fatherhood initiatives and comprehensive youth development initiatives leading to significant and lasting positive changes in communities.
We look forward to honoring and celebrating these inspirational community leaders with you on Wednesday, October 23 at Bright Promises 2024 Awards.
Honoring Changemakers at the 2024 Awards
Each year, Bright Promises recognizes and celebrates individuals and organizations whose commitment to Chicagoland children and youth is a model and inspiration for others. Honorees are exemplary leaders in service to Chicagoland communities who have contributed to notable improvements in the lives of children and youth. These inspirational community leaders demonstrate a deep commitment to creating opportunities for every young person to live a better life and have a brighter future.
This year's award recipients will be honored at Bright Promises 2024 Awards on Wednesday, October 23rd from 6:00-9:00pm at Wildman BT (3020 W. Carroll Ave.) Event details and registration available here.
Selecting the Honorees
This year's honorees were chosen by the 2024 Awards Selection Committee through a competitive public nomination process. We offer our sincere gratitude to the 2024 Awards Selection Committee for their time and careful consideration of this year's nominees. Thank you to:
Adam Alonso, BUILD Inc.
Shilpa Bavikatte, Crown Family Philanthropies
Nick Bruce, Wintrust
Aimee Hilado, University of Chicago
Announcing the 2024 Awards Honorees
Eva Giglio - 2024 Community Impact Award
In her role leading CME Group Foundation, Eva has been transformative in bringing resources to west and south side communities. In particular, she has brought funders together to highlight the crisis in girls' mental health and directed investments to support family mental wellness in Englewood.
Eva Giglio joined CME as the Executive Director of the CME Group Foundation in 2021. She brings over a decade of experience working in education and enhancing the lives of Chicago’s youth. She most recently served as the Deputy Chief of Staff in Chicago Public Schools, where she led the district’s strategic vision and improvement planning, with a focus on creating more equitable outcomes for students. In this role, she also co-led the Mayor’s Pre-K through 12 Reopening Schools Task Force during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to that she served as a Director in the Chief Education Office of CPS, where she was responsible for creating systems to better support schools and engage critical stakeholders. With a lifelong passion for education, Eva started her career as a middle and high school Spanish teacher at Kenwood Academy in Chicago.
In addition to education, Eva is passionate about equity in access to resources for families with children in Chicago. She serves as a Board Member for Share Our Spare, which helps provide diapers and essentials to families in need.
Arely Barerra - 2024 Elevating Youth Voices Award
Arely Barrera, Palenque LSNA’s Youth Organizer, grew up in Logan Square participating in Palenque’s programming. Every year Arely hires and trains over one hundred local youth to ask big questions about the kind of world and community that would make their lives better, more just, filled with love and safety.
Through her guidance youth have gotten involved in abolitionist campaigns in our city to redirect resources from police to actual social and emotional supports, to fight for policies that will protect and create affordable housing for all, and education justice in our schools. Arely is a serious practitioner of Popular Education, --one of her greatest gifts is writing lesson plans and editing curriculum that help young people understand the systems of oppression and cultures of resistance present in their own lives and histories in order to move them to strategic action and healing.
Her latest popular education project, called "Where Am I Now," has two aims: 1) engage a racially/culturally diverse group of high schoolers around their questions and feelings about the 45,000 new arrivals from South America in order to develop empathy and solidarity by telling and listening to one another's stories, 2) design a learning tool for classroom teachers to allow them to engage their students in discussions the histories of migrations and the need for us all to belong to a collective all in search of making life better for themselves and all Chicagoans.
Sherneron Hilliard - 2024 Champion for Children Award
Hilliard’s career since 1998 has been in service to Chicago and NE Illinois nonprofits, starting out as a youth and family therapist and progressing to social work coordination, program development and site director. Hilliard is now Senior VP of Programs and Impact for Family Focus, with oversight of 350 program staff and all government grants and contracts for services to 20,000 people each year. Her life’s work has had the most impact in eleven communities served by Family Focus across NE Illinois, from South Holland to Aurora to Highland Park.
Hilliard’s contributions and experience have been key to programs and services planning and implementation during and after the historic merger in 2021 of Chicago Child Care Society and Family Focus. This joining of missions to serve children, youth and families created an agency with 12 locations, $31 million budget and 410 team members. She is solely accountable for all program quality, delivery and evaluation.
As a larger more sustainable agency, Hilliard took advantage of opportunities for program expansion in home visiting, doula services, and immigrant services. She led trauma informed care training with staff to build a comprehensive theory of Healing Care and Practices for participants throughout the agency, including how we care for staff members and their secondary trauma. She responds to the needs of the community by developing targeted programs that address critical issues such as grandparents raising grandchild and a job readiness program, creatively collaborating with other organizations such as City Colleges of Chicago and agencies serving incarcerated men and women.
She has shown exceptional leadership in developing and implementing programs, such as restorative justice structures, early childhood initiatives, fatherhood initiatives and comprehensive youth development initiatives leading to significant and lasting positive changes in communities.
We look forward to honoring and celebrating these inspirational community leaders with you on Wednesday, October 23 at Bright Promises 2024 Awards.
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