The 51st Annual Trustees’ Scholarship Ball was held Saturday night to generate funds for the Calumet College of St. Joseph’s Scholarship Fund.
Cocktails and appetizers were served as guests arrived, followed by dinner. Phase4 Band also graced the guests with their musical talent throughout the night.
President of CCSJ Daniel Lowery said, “The secret to a good event is this: you have really good music, really good dancing, really good food, and a very short program so that you can get out of the way and let people have a good time. So what we concentrate on is people having a good time.”
CCSJ has been serving Northwest Indiana’s educational needs since 1951. The college is Indiana’s most diverse four-year institution of higher learning. It is also the state’s only federally designated hispanic-serving institution.
“Our mission has always been the same and that is to serve at risk, underprivileged students,” said Lowery. “The vast majority of our students are first in their families to ever go to college. That mission is still strong at the college. Our students are very high need and so we look to the community to help make an education possible. Many of the people here, many of the donors, got help along the way when they were in college and they’re just passing the blessings on to the next generation of students. We’re very grateful to them for all of their assistance.”
The evening involved not only food and dance, but also a heartwarming awards program. Described as “one of the highest honors that CCSJ can bestow,” the St. Joseph Worker Award was given to Lou Martinez. Native to Northwest Indiana, Martinez has taken on numerous leadership roles with groups including the President’s Council United Way of America, the Governor’s Commission for a Drug-Free Indiana, and the Indiana Department of Family Services.
Martinez said, “If you look at the list of people that have been recognized before, it’s just an honor to be considered among them. It’s really neat and I thank the Trustees for that support and their acknowledgement of this. With United Way I have funded a lot of organizations and institutions in the community to do the work of caring for people.The award kind of embodies that. It’s about caring for people, wanting the best for people and that kind of fits in my wheelhouse of United Way. It all ties together.”
The Brother Gerard Von Hagel Alumni Award was given to Herb Yerkel for his spirit of stewardship and service. Yerkel is a graduate of CCSJ himself who also served as the college’s Alumni Director for a decade.
“It feels very good to be honored because I spent ten years at the college as a Director of Alumni,” said Yerkel. “I’ve had a wonderful time in those ten years and it just feels great that my services have been recognized.”
Corporate Leadership was also recognized during the evening. Edgewater Behavioral Health Services was awarded for their commitment to the community.
“It’s great to be honored tonight,” said President and CEO Danita Johnson Hughes. “We have a really great team of people and whenever there is a challenge, they meet it head-on. We’ve been in business 40 years and over those years we’ve treated tens of thousands of people. What I like about what I do is that I have a team of people who are always ready to assess what the community needs and then they go about building it for them. We’ve had a lot of successes over the years.”
By the end of the evening, guests were reminded of how rewarding it can be to support the community, especially when it involves education.
