Facing History Celebrates 20 Years in Chicago with 2010 Benefit Dinner
For Immediate Release
Contact: Laura Silverman / Beth Silverman
The Silverman Group, Inc.
312.932.9950
laura@silvermangroupchicago.com
FACING HISTORY AND OURSELVES CELEBRATES 20 YEARS IN CHICAGO WITH 2010 BENEFIT DINNER, FEATURING ACCLAIMED CHICAGO AUTHOR DAVE EGGERS,WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 2010
The Chicago office of the international Facing History and Ourselves organization is proud to announce its 2010 Benefit Dinner – Celebrating 20 Years in Chicago, featuring acclaimed author, activist and Chicago native Dave Eggers. The event will take place in the International Ballroom of the Hyatt Regency Chicago, 151 East Wacker Drive, Wednesday, May 5, beginning at 5:30 p.m. Business attire is requested.
Benefit Co-Chairs Jennifer Aubrey, Jonathan Harries, Jeanette Sublett and Langdon Neal will welcome guests with a reception beginning at 5:30pm, followed by dinner and the feature program at 6:30pm. The annual benefit is a major fundraiser for the Chicago office of this international organization; last year’s event attracted nearly 900 guests! Tickets are $500 each; to purchase tickets call 312-345-3232.
“Celebrating 20 years in Chicago is such an exciting achievement,” said Bonnie Oberman, Chicago Director of Facing History and Ourselves. “We are so proud to work with teachers throughout the metropolitan area as they help us reach our goal of transforming the next generation of students into more thoughtful, knowledgeable, caring citizens who are aware that their choices can change the world. Now in partnership with the Chicago Public School, which has recently revamped its social studies curriculum, Facing History will reach 8th grade students in classes about civil rights and 9th grade world history students using our Holocaust and Human Behavior unit. Dave Eggers uses oral histories to illuminate human rights causes around the world. We are thrilled that he is here to celebrate this milestone with us.”
Dave Eggers undeniably embodies the Facing History and Ourselves mission: to engage students of diverse backgrounds in making the essential connection between history and the moral choices they confront in their own lives. Eggers presentation will highlight what individuals can do to make a difference, how the power of an individual’s story transcends, and what Eggers has done to make a difference in our world. Additionally Facing History is beginning a partnership with Eggers to bring his Voice of Witness project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to illuminating contemporary human rights crises through oral history, into the classroom in the next few years.
The Chicago office of Facing History and Ourselves, the first outside of Boston, was founded 20 years ago by Lincoln Park’s Judy Wise and Karen Harrison. It began by training 30 teachers in 5 schools on how to engage students in subjects no one else wanted to talk about. The origins and terror of antisemitism. Of racism, prejudice and bigotry. And the importance of history in making moral choices in their own lives.
Today those 30 are nearly 2,600 Chicago-area educators that have participated in professional development programs. Today the network reaches almost 260,000 middle and high school students annually in over 675 public, private and parochial schools, almost half Chicago Public Schools.
Over the years, Benefit speakers have included Samantha Power, Sandra Cisneros, Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, then-Senator Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Terrence Roberts and Elizabeth Eckford of the Little Rock Nine, and many more.
About Dave Eggers
A native of Chicago, Dave Eggers is the author of several books and co-founder of Voice of Witness, a project using oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. His most recent book, Zeitoun, is a non-fiction account of a Syrian-American immigrant and his extraordinary experience during Hurricane Katrina. Eggers was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Award and winner of France’s Prix Medici for What Is the What, about Valentino Achak Deng, a survivor of the civil war in southern Sudan. The widely acclaimed book resulted in Deng’s establishing a foundation dedicated to building secondary schools in southern Sudan.
About Facing History and Ourselves
Facing History and Ourselves is an international educational and professional development organization whose mission is to engage students of diverse backgrounds in an examination of racism, prejudice, and antisemitism in order to promote the development of a more humane and informed citizenry. By studying the historical development of the Holocaust and other examples of genocide and mass violence, students make the essential connection between history and the moral choices they confront in their own lives. Facing History reaches 1.9 million students each year through a network of 50,000 educators. In 2009, the Facing History and Ourselves website received more than 700,000 visits from people in 215 countries, with 2.6 million page views. More information is available at facinghistory.org.
For more information about the 2010 Benefit Dinner Celebrating 20 Years in Chicago, please call (312) 726-4500 or visit http://www.facinghistory.org/events/benefit_dinners.
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