“Everybody needs a spark,” observed Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg, as he kicked off the seventh annual James Irvine Foundation Leadership Awards luncheon ceremony in Sacramento. For a capacity crowd of over 200 guests, in the Sheraton Grand Sacramento Hotel ballroom, there was plenty of inspiration to go around, as we honored the five 2012 award recipients, whose path-breaking solutions are addressing problems in the fields of health care, education, youth development and agriculture. As Steinberg noted, the annual award ceremony offers lawmakers and policy experts “a chance…to get together and reflect on all that is good in California.”

The day of celebration for our five honorees began in the state Capitol, where state Assemblymembers Paul Fong, David Valadao and Sandré Swanson presented each award recipient with a framed Assembly resolution honoring his or her work. (Assembly Speaker John Perez and Assemblymember Bill Monning authored two of the resolutions but were unable to attend the morning presentation.) During the event, Assemblymember Fong told Christa Gannon, head of Fresh Lifelines for Youth and one of this year’s awardees, “Thank you for saving the state a bunch of money by doing the work that you do!”  

More commendations came at the luncheon, in remarks from a distinguished group of public officials: