2021 Thomas Demetrio Award of Excellence Presented to Access Living
Corboy & Demetrio is proud to announce that Access Living’s Disability Justice Mentoring Collective (DJMC) is the recipient of the 2021 Thomas A. Demetrio Award of Excellence.
DJMC is an award-winning youth mentoring program that connects young people who have disabilities with adult mentors. The program helps youth, who are in the sixth to twelfth grade, make connections, build their independence, and explore new skills. Mentors are volunteers who commit to spending five hours a month with their student.
The 2021 presentation was made virtually at Lawyers Lend-A-Hand’s Virtual Spring Benefit on April 29th. The award is given annually to tutoring and mentoring programs that impact the lives of underprivileged youth.
Background on Lawyers Lend-A-Hand and Thomas A. Demetrio
In 1992, the Lend-A-Hand Award of Excellence was created by Thomas A. Demetrio, Co-founder of Corboy & Demetrio, while he was President of the Chicago Bar Association(CBA). Thomas wanted to impact the lives of Chicago’s underprivileged children by recognizing the efforts of exceptional tutor/mentor programs in the Chicago communities. From this Award was born the Lend-A-Hand Program.
The Chicago Bar Foundation(CBF), with the leadership of the CBA, created the Lend-A-Hand Program in 1995, with Thomas as a Founder, and it has continued to evolve ever since. Lend-A-Hand was created in dedication to the lasting memory and generosity of Tom’s mentor, the Honorable Abraham Lincoln Marovitz. In addition to the Demetrio Award, Lend-A-Hand has given gifts of more than $1.6 million to worthy mentoring programs.
Thomas Demetrio is a Life Fellow of the Chicago Bar Foundation and has served on the Lend-A-Hand Advisory Board since 1994.