Photo Access with Ken McCoy: Fw: 5th Consecutive RTDM SELL OUT Awards Luncheon! Ken McCoy Official Photographer.....

From: Keith Kelley <keithkelley@fwced.org>

Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:31:39 -0500 (EST)

To: <xipnek@aol.com>

Subject: 5th Consecutive RTDM SELL OUT Awards Luncheon!

5th Consecutive Sold Out RTDM!

Toped Last Year's 500 RSVP List

2 Days Away

5th Annual "Risk Takers, Dream Makers" Awards Luncheon

Dual Featured Awardees of the Day Are:

Non-Profit Organization Award:

United One Productions

United One Productions is a non-profit organization with a simple mission: To create Unity in our Community and to revitalize and restore 'broken' Neighborhoods and 'broken' souls by providing intervention, motivation, hope and opportunity for positive growth and direction, especially for the youth. United One Productions hosts numerous events throughout the year to raise money and awareness for 'Bringing Broken Neighborhoods Back to Life' to promote within our community this change, discipleship and unity.

Our second passion is to raise up our youth and provide them with tools, resources and positive environments to use their God-given gifts to give back to their community. One of our largest events has become one of Fresno's preeminent charitable events; the Christian Music Awards. This nationally televised event combines already established and well-respected Christian Artists with the 'Best of the Blessed' stars of the future. We host The "Blessed of the Blessed" competition to allow these up and coming artists to share this platform, while the Christian Celebrity Artists serve as not just performers and presenters, but also dedicate their time as mentors.

Beyond the Christian Music Awards, United One Productions organizes various fundraisers, outreaches and volunteer opportunities. Find us in the inner-cites cleaning up homes and yards, hosting block parties in gang-territory neighborhoods, providing groceries to individuals and just plain being available to listen.

United One Productions collaborates with our local law enforcement, local business owners and individuals as well as corporations and other non-profit organizations to partner in the cause of meeting all tangible and spiritual needs. United One Productions through these efforts has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to meet the most basic needs of our community.

Fresno County Community Leader Award:

Alysia Sofios

Reporter, Fox Television Channel 26

Alysia Sofios is an award-winning journalist who is known in the Fresno area for her exclusive stories about the Marcus Wesson murders. She was the first reporter to hear about the story from police and the only reporter to obtain interviews with most of Wesson's family.

Sofios majored in journalism at Michigan State University. In 2000, she became a reporter and anchor at Fox affiliate WSYM in Lansing, Michigan. She was recognized by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters for her work covering the local impact of the Iraq War. She later accepted a reporting position at Fox affiliate KMPH in Fresno, California, where she remains as a reporter. She has covered the Scott Peterson and Marcus Wesson trials. Several of her stories have appeared on Fox News and CNN.

When local television reporter Alysia Sofios was assigned to investigate the worst mass murder in the history of Fresno, California, the breaking news lead soon became something much more - a hope-filled relationship that changed the lives of both the young reporter and the survivors of an unimaginable crime.
FOR DECADES, the family of Marcus Wesson - his wife, Elizabeth, and seventeen children - lived sequestered in a social and emotional prison of Wesson's creation. None of the children ever had a childhood; going to school, playing with friends, going on dates - all were forbidden. Together, they endured his tyrannical reign of physical, sexual, and mental abuse.

Then, in 2004, as a family confrontation erupted into a harrowing standoff, with police and SWAT teams descending on the small blue house on West Hammond Avenue, Marcus Wesson murdered nine of his children. The television reporter who got the first tip about Wesson's arrest, Alysia Sofios, would ultimately cover the case through Wesson's trial. She quickly learned that the surviving female family members - Elizabeth, Rosie, Kiani, and Gypsy - had nowhere to go but the streets. Torn between journalistic objectivity and her desire to help them, Sofios risked her job and her life by taking them into her home and helping integrate them into society.
Here, these brave survivors candidly recount their traumatic past and look to a bright future that now holds plans and dreams they never thought possible - from college to careers to families of their own.

But the connections between Sofios and her newfound family deepened beyond anything anyone could have anticipated - a bond of mutual caring and healing that was put to the test when Sofios suffered serious injuries in a car accident and found the Wesson women by her side to see her through her recovery.

Guest Speaker

Ortensia Lopez

Ortensia Lopez