A Night of Inspiration & Joy!
It was so wonderful to be back in person at the Lumity Annual Benefit & Celebration on March 25. It truly was a night of inspiration and joy as we showcased and celebrated our STEM Career Prep and STEMWorks youth. All of it was made possible because of our corporate and school partners!
The Amazing Lumity Youth
The evening kicked off with our STEM Career Prep semi-finalist teams presenting their solutions to seemingly intractable problems—from microplastics to walkway accessibility. The two finalist teams– Thornwood High School’s See to Sea, coached by Ferrara, and Von Steuben’s Very Accessible Leisure (V.A.L.), coached by CDW and Brookfield Properties—then took to the stage!
In a tight competition of presentations and Q&A in front of nearly 300 Chicagoland STEM professionals, Von Steuben’s V.A.L. emerged as the winner! Check out their amazing presentation.
The night’s Fireside Chat featured two of our STEMWorks graduates: Tulani Butler and Jessica White. After meeting these dynamic young ladies, guests signed up to become mentors and expressed interest in joining Lumity’s family of employer partners.
The student portion of the evening culminated with all semi-finalists taking the stage as Lumity Board Chair, Chris Johnson recapped the night’s presentation and awarded prizes to all the students in attendance.
A Big Thank You to Our Corporate Partners
Lumity is deeply grateful to our generous sponsors and the STEM Fair attendees. Your support helped us exceed our fundraising goal by $80K to benefit Chicagoland youth and STEM education. You enable us to engage additional young adults in our programs, provide new laptops for our participants to deepen their digital skills, and test new solutions to help participants sometimes navigate lengthy commutes to/from their new STEM jobs.
We also want to highlight the commitment of our STEM Fair Judges & Coaches. Every year, they make this experience enriching and rewarding for students during the months of preparation and the evening itself. Our 2022 STEM Fair judges included:
- Chris Johnston – Managing Director at Accenture and Chair of Lumity’s Board
- Dan Mohnen – Engineering Director at Arity
- Dhaval Joshi – Co-COO at Creospan
- Heather Boggs – Chief Innovation Officer at Ferrara
- Ben Sanders – Head of Talent Acquisition at Infostretch
- Sreelatha Surendranathan – SVP & Chief Digital Officer at UL and Executive Committee Member of Lumity’s Board
Our wonderful STEM Career Prep Coaches include volunteers from:
- Brookfield Properties
- CDW
- Clarity Partners
- Discover
- Ferrara
- KPMG
- PwC
- USG
To all of Lumity’s corporate partners: Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!
Join Us! If you couldn’t join us in person or virtually, you can watch the highlights of the celebration below! Experience the Annual Benefit & Celebration and join your STEM colleagues in supporting Lumity.
