The Illuminated Word Installation at Jackson Lewis June Weekend
Jodi Harris, LitWorld Development Consultant
As summer flies by, we continue to bask in the glow of our sunny Jackson Lewis June Weekend in San Diego, an extraordinary opportunity to spend three days celebrating the support of our friends at Jackson Lewis, a national workplace law firm.
Throughout our days in San Diego, our amazing LitWorld team engaged in so many fascinating and heartfelt conversations with veteran and new members of the community. With a supportive and eager audience of lawyers and their families, we were able to share the LitWorld Way. One of the highlights of the weekend was the Illuminated Words Installation. We set up shop in the middle of the action and invited the Jackson Lewis community to choose words that they felt embodied the firm’s core values of family, quality, and good works. Everyone then spelled those words using our colorful materials. It was a pure joy for us to work with folks of all ages as they thoughtfully chose words and brought them to life, culminating with hundreds of words in the final installation.
We shared the Jackson Lewis community’s excitement as the final piece came together so beautifully and powerfully with light, color, and layers of meaning, in a spectacular display that shared the whimsical joy of the night’s carnival theme. We shared the awe of our wordsmiths as they walked through (literally!) the exhibit that they created.
This extraordinary June Weekend kicked off long before June.
A year ago, the partners of Jackson Lewis invited Pam Allyn, LitWorld Founder & Executive Director, to their offices to talk about how the firm could continue to build on the legacy of her late father Bill Krupman. Together, they hoped to support LitWorld while honoring Bill and his years of dedication building Jackson Lewis alongside its founder Louis Jackson. It was at that meeting that Chairman Vincent Cino conceived the idea to work towards a finale: the firm “BBQ” in San Diego in June. He proposed that the offices would compete to raise the most money for LitWorld. They would excite everyone by sharing stories from our innovative LitCamp program in a tribute to Bill's love of summer camp.
Then began a ten-month inter-office competition for the highest level of participation and the most dollars raised. With the verve that drives their top notch practice of law, the office teams embraced the opportunity to outdo their colleagues in a friendly and meaningful way. We are humbled by the thoughtfulness, creativity, and vibrancy of their FUNraising strategies, from denim days to car washes.
The firm exceeded its goal of $225,000 and raised $257,040. At $57 per child, this is enough to send over 4,500 more children to LitCamps! Many more children will be able to reverse the “summer slide” in reading and writing skills while tapping into their own natural motivation, curiosity, and confidence in nurturing spaces, and form friendships with other children as they share their stories.
The weekend truly celebrated Bill’s life, with so many people telling us they remembered him interviewing them, mentoring them, taking risks to build something big. They spoke about how he was so proud to work at the company and so proud to support LitWorld. He believed in our mission to help children around the globe find their voices, tell their stories, and claim their roles in the world. And he worked and traveled with Pam from Detroit, Michigan to Kibera, Kenya.
The deep respect of the Jackson Lewis team echoes the teamwork that characterizes everything we do at LitWorld. As a recovered lawyer who practiced in large firms, I have never experienced a more genuine culture of camaraderie. We are deeply grateful for the ardent support Jackson Lewis has given to LitWorld, and energized by our shared values and the potential we have to positively impact thousands of children.
Read more about Jackson Lewis June Weekend and their support of LitWorld here.