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Boys & Girls Clubs of North County celebrate Rising Stars

FALLBROOK – The Boys & Girls Clubs of North County held their annual Rising Star Award ceremony May 24. Staff from all eight club sites, board members, community partners and family and friends of the recipients gathered to celebrate this year's winners.

"This is a special night for our club," said Allison Barclay, chief executive officer for the Boys & Girls of North County. "Our staff does a great job of recognizing club members on a daily basis but this event gives us a chance to publicly recognize our amazing youth members."

The first award presented was the prestigious Rising Star Award, which grants honorees $200 toward college expenses. The Ridgecrest Family Endowment Fund was created in 2008 at the Legacy Endowment Community Foundation by Laurenn Barker and her brother, Sandy Prater, as an incentive to encourage youth to stay on the positive path toward high school and college. This year's Rising Star recipients were Isaac Castellanos and Neighlah Lopez.

The ceremony also recognized a boy and girl of the year from each of the eight club sites. In addition to the boys and girls of the year, youth members were recognized by staff in the areas of academics, athletics, sportsmanship and citizenship. At the end of the evening, one member is selected as the Youth of the Year. This is the highest award a club can bestow on one of its members. The Youth of the Year was awarded to Blanca Gonzalez from the Fallbrook Street site.

This year the club recognized Barry Kurnik as the Coach of the Year for his involvement with the Lady Braves program at Potter Jr. High. The club chose brothers David and Daniel Lucero as the Volunteers of the Year for their dedicated service at the Ingold Club. Finally, Michael Lopez, the site supervisor for Live Oak Elementary, was awarded the Staff MVP for helping to reshape his site in to one that is warm, welcoming and inclusive.

Legacy Endowment Community Foundation is a volunteer-driven, nonprofit public charity established in 1994 to provide leadership, serve donors, and award grants and scholarships to improve and enrich the quality of life in San Diego's North County, forever. For more information on donating to or starting a fund, please contact Legacy Endowment Community Foundation at (760) 728-3304.

The mission of Boys & Girls Clubs of North County is "to inspire and enable all young people, especially those that need us most, to realize their full potential as productive, responsible and caring citizens." The mission is carried out each day in the Ingold clubhouse, four school sites in Fallbrook and one school site in Rainbow. At the heart of the mission is the club's patient and caring staff that build ongoing relationships with our club members and are the key to the impact we have on the youths. To find out more about how the Boys & Girls Club helps the youths in our community, visit http://www.bgcnorthcounty.org.

 

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