Distinguished Citizen Award Dinner

Our annual recognition of members of our community who freely give of their time and talents in service to youth.

Established by the Boy Scouts of America, the Distinguished Citizen Award recognizes noteworthy and extraordinary leadership of citizens in communities across the United States. Honoring distinguished citizenship delivers a message to our youth that character counts. The lives of distinguished citizens put into place guideposts that serve to inspire our youth to lead, to accept responsibility, and to care about principles and causes beyond self-interest.

2020 Distinguished Citizen Award Dinner

Join us in celebration of character, service, and family.

New Date: Thursday, September 3, 2020

Can’t attend? Donate here.

Honoree: Judy Kleinberg, President of the Chamber of Commerce and former mayor of Palo Alto

Crowne Plaza Palo Alto
4290 El Camino Real
Palo Alto, CA 94306
6:00-9:00pm

For more information please contact:
Ron Chang at (650) 341-5633 x103, or ron.chang@scouting.org

Judy’s bio:

Currently the President of the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce and former Mayor of Palo Alto, Judy is a business law attorney with extensive legal and business experience in profit and nonprofit businesses, as well as in government, media, health and social services, philanthropy, and law. Prior to joining the Chamber of Commerce in 2014, she successfully managed many start-ups, with extensive experience advising new businesses on corporate formation and policies. An award-winning nonprofit executive, she has successfully created and led both public interest and private grant-making organizations, taking them from small single-office to multi-site, multi-program organizations. An honors graduate of the Univ. of Michigan and UC Berkeley’s School of Law where she was a member of the Law Review, Judy taught business law for over 10 years. Among her multiple honors are being named “Woman of the Year” by the California State Legislature, and a “Woman of Influence” by the Silicon Valley Business Journal.

SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER: Terry Fossum

Entrepreneur, inspirational speaker, Scouting volunteer, philanthropist – with an important message about Scouting!

Born in the poorest city in the United States surrounded by gangs and drugs, Terry found himself staring down the wrong end of an assault rifle in his own back alley in junior high. In high school, his father was killed. Before he died, one of the neighbors told him “I just want to make sure you understand something: Not a single one of your boys will ever grow up to be anything.” But Terry and his brothers had Scouting, and Scouting changed their lives.

Terry’s keynote tells that gripping story of how Scouting took Terry from that background to a highly-respected Air Force officer, a self-made millionaire, author, speaker, philanthropist and winner of Kicking and Screaming on Fox, and his brother to being a US astronaut. Not just another sports or corporate story – this is a SCOUTING story.

Proceeds from this event will help support ScoutReach and other council programs.

Past Distinguished Citizen Award recipients include:

Marie Chuang, Bill Graham, Bill Long, Wendy Young & Mark Convery, David & Lynn Mitchell, Bill Reller, Bill Floyd, Carol Mayer Marshall & Robert Beresford Williams, Allen Phipps, Franklin “Pitch” Johnson, Jr., and Rebecca (Becky) Morgan, among others.

Proceeds from the event help support the Pacific Skyline Council’s ScoutReach program which provides opportunities for ALL youth, regardless of economic circumstance, neighborhood, or ethnicity to have an enriching and life-changing Scouting experience!

For over 100 years, the Boy Scouts of America has led the nation in providing citizenship training for American youth. Through the years, Scouting has provided young people with character development programs based on values found in the Scout Oath: duty to God, duty to country, duty to others, and duty to self. Today’s often-heard call for a return to ethical behavior, self-reliance, and caring and concern for others refers precisely to the values expressed in the Scout Law, the bedrock of the movement since 1910.