2019 Honorees

Maddi Bertrand

Maddi Bertrand is a national Cystic Fibrosis research advocate and Lurie Children’s Kids Advisory Board (KAB) member. She has accepted numerous speaking engagements to help raise pediatric research funding and attended the first International Children’s Advisory Summit in Washington, D.C. representing the Lurie KAB.   Maddi’s dedication to her fellow patients is unsurpassed.  She has helped host three Lurie Children’s proms for inpatients and rarely misses a meeting or volunteer opportunity – even when she is receiving treatments.

Lurie Children’s is proud to honor Maddi with the 2019 Youth Leader Hope & Courage Award.

Secretary of State Jesse White

Secretary of State Jesse White has been inspiring others ever since his formative years as a star athlete at Waller High (now Lincoln Park High School).  White served as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division and as a member of the Illinois National Guard and Reserve.  After playing professional baseball with the Chicago Cubs, he began three decades of public service as a Chicago Public Schools teacher and administrator.  

Throughout his service in elected office, White has saved countless lives as Illinois’s most influential advocate for teen driving safety and organ donation. He has also transformed lives and given hope to generations of youth through his work with the Jesse White Tumblers.  Arguably one of Chicago’s original youth mentoring and anti-violence programs, Jesse White Tumblers remains a model for what is possible when children and youth receive support to reach their full potential.

Lurie Children’s is proud to honor Secretary of State Jesse White with the 2019 Government Leader Hope & Courage Award.

VOYCE (Voices of Youth in Chicago Education)

Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE) is a collaborative for education and racial justice led by students of color from six community organizations across the city of Chicago.  VOYCE helped end the use of zero tolerance discipline in all publicly funded schools in Illinois and is a co-convener of the Safe Schools Consortium that works to reduce out-of-school suspensions and school-based arrests by implementing restorative justice practices. Recently, VOYCE members helped establish Good Kids Mad City, a student-led advocacy group that organizes against gun violence, and led a qualitative research project that convinced Chicago Public Schools to change its procedures for handling alcohol-related discipline.  As a leader in the fight to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline, VOYCE is creating a better future for Chicago’s next generation of children and families.

Lurie Children’s is proud to honor Voices of Youth in Chicago Education with the 2019 Community Advocate Hope & Courage Award.