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Health & Fitness

Tickets on sale now for the Polsky Humanitarian Award event honoring Burgs

Tickets are now available for the 2013 Bert A. Polsky Humanitarian Award Dinner honoring one of Northeast Ohio’s most philanthropic couples, H. Peter and Eileen Burg. The event will take place Oct. 15 at 6 p.m. at the Hilton Akron/Fairlawn. Tickets start at $150 per person and are available online at www.regonline.com/Polsky.

The Burgs will be the 46th recipients of the award, which Akron Community Foundation presents each year to the individual or couple who best exemplifies Bert Polsky’s selfless dedication to humanitarian causes in Akron. Pete will be honored posthumously, while Eileen will accept the award in person.

After meeting as students at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School, Pete and Eileen Burg built their life together around helping individuals and the greater Akron community. Pete, the late FirstEnergy Corp. chairman and CEO, served on the boards of Akron Children’s Hospital, Musical Arts Association, United Way of Summit County and the Summit County Chapter of the American Red Cross. He also chaired the steering committee for Team NEO. Eileen serves on a variety of boards and has chaired many local fundraisers, including the 2011 Bert A. Polsky Humanitarian Award Dinner, the American Heart Association’s Circle of Red, and the food bank’s 2008 Harvest for Hunger campaign, which raised enough food and funds to provide one-third of the organization’s 11.5 million meals that year. Eileen continues to support the couple’s favorite causes and charities through the H. Peter Burg Fund of Akron Community Foundation.

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The Polsky Award event begins with a cocktail reception at 6 p.m. followed by dinner at 7 p.m. Dinner guests will enjoy a program led by former Akron Deputy Mayor Dave Lieberth, followed by the presentation of the Bert A. Polsky Humanitarian Award, named for the former president of Polsky’s Department Store and founding trustee of Akron Community Foundation.

Presenting sponsor for the event is FirstEnergy. Other major sponsors include Medical Mutual, The Maynard Family Foundation and Roth, a Sodexo company.

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Sponsorship opportunities are still available. Sponsorships start at $2,500 and include tickets to the Polsky Award event and a private reception with Eileen Burg on Oct. 10. For more information, call Margaret Medzie, vice president of development and donor engagement, at 330-436-5610.

Event proceeds benefit the Polsky Fund of Akron Community Foundation, which honors Bert Polsky’s humanitarian legacy by making grants to advance the physical, social, educational and cultural well-being of local residents. To date, the fund has reinvested more than $540,000 into the greater Akron community.

For more information about the event or to request a printed invitation, please contact De Shawn Pickett at 330-376-8522.

About Akron Community Foundation

Celebrating 58 years of building community philanthropy, Akron Community Foundation embraces and enhances the work of charitable people who make a permanent commitment to the good of the community. In 1955, a $1 million bequest from the estate of Edwin Shaw established the community foundation. Today, it is a philanthropic endowment of more than $150 million with a growing family of more than 430 funds established by charitable people and organizations from all walks of life. The community foundation welcomes gifts of all kinds, including cash, bequests, stock, real estate, life insurance and retirement assets, just to name a few. To date, the community foundation’s funds have awarded more than $106 million in grants to qualified nonprofit organizations. For more information about Akron Community Foundation or to learn more about creating your own charitable fund, call 330-376-8522 or visit www.akroncf.org.

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