The
All Stars Project (ASP), a national innovator in
afterschool inner-city youth development, saluted Latham
& Watkins Partner & Vice Chair David Gordon,
Ernst & Young Managing Partner Scott Hill and All
Stars Project President & CEO Gabrielle L. Kurlander,
at its National Gala benefit.
The event at the David H. Koch Theater at
Lincoln Center drew 450 business leaders, donors and
young people and raised $7 million for the group’s
afterschool development programs for inner-city youth in
New York City, Newark, Chicago, San Francisco/Bay Area,
Dallas and Bridgeport.
This year’s gala, Reaching for the
Stars: Young People and Old Friends Growing Together,
celebrated over 30 years of after-school performing arts
programs for inner-city children and the visionary
partnerships that make the All Stars growth possible.
Honorees David Gordon and Scott Hill
pioneered All Stars’ innovative partnerships with the
business community on a national scale by expanding the
organization’s relationship with their respective
firms. Gordon connected ASP to Latham & Watkins offices
in a number of cities in the U.S. Hill formalized ASP’s
partnership with Ernst & Young in New York and New
Jersey.
Said All Stars President & CEO Gabrielle
Kurlander, “The business community has been very
supportive of All Stars programs and the new approach we
have successfully pioneered to engage poverty, which is
for a diversity of people – including young and old,
rich and poor – to come together to create development.
These innovative partnerships have taken All Stars to
six cities, and over the next ten years, they are going
to take this to 60 more.”
Kurlander was honored for her twenty-five
years of innovation and leadership.
Honorees were recognized in a lively,
multi-media program that included dance and singing
performances by All Stars youth. WABC-TV news anchor
Diana Williams hosted.