Local Bradenton CEO and National Nonprofit are Awarded Prestigious Presidential Lifetime Achievement and Volunteer Service Awards
Local Bradenton CEO and National Nonprofit are Awarded Prestigious Presidential Lifetime Achievement and Volunteer Service Awards
Christina Gerken, founder and CEO of Align Consulting Teams, and the nonprofit, National Promise Coalition, which Gerken also founded, were honored today as recipients of the coveted Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award and the President’s Gold Volunteer Service Medal.
The private ceremony included presentation of the awards by Congressman Steube, celebrating Mrs. Gerken’s service and accomplishments championing the underprivileged as a strategic consultant, national convener and philanthropic innovator.
Over the last twenty years, Christina has honed her skills in strategy development and program implementation for nonprofits, businesses and industries while logging over 4,000 hours serving on various boards and passion projects that she supports.
Gerken’s storied career began in education. It was here she began seeing the disconnects between programs and organizations within the infrastructure of systems in education, social services and healthcare. One such disconnect caused her to engage in extensive research and led to highlight the need for a National Interstate Database for Children who are abused. This work will lead to the creation of the Criminal Justice Alert System for Abused Children, while also leading to the passage of much-needed legislation for abused and neglected children. Her work continued, and she established multiple initiatives to meet targeted community needs, including the award-winning nonprofit, National Promise Coalition, which focuses on awareness, education and sustained advocacy for survivor families of domestic violence and child abuse.
She has also founded Hope Pathways of Manatee County, which seeks to combat homelessness, and has established Growing OAKS, which brings together key state and civic leaders in government, legislature, civic government, law enforcement, school systems, the judicial system and numerous non-profit organizations that focus on preventing housing insecurity for youth and filling current gaps including helping youth that are aging out of foster care.
Recently, Christina organized a roundtable to raise the visibility of human trafficking, which brought national leaders together from all sectors to discuss how to combat this issue that grips every nation across the globe. In celebration of CNN’s #MyFreedomDay, she launched a campaign that works alongside national organizations, including A21, Power over Predators and The Asservo, to name a few.
Advisory Council Member, Sharon Bonney, CEO of the Coalition on Adult Basic Education, noted, “It has been breathtaking to watch the collective impact that this newly-formed roundtable is already having and the speed with which Align Consulting has been able to implement this campaign. This speaks to the leadership of Christina Gerken, and the depth and breadth of the team that she assembled to meet this challenge.”
Align to Meet A Need, the philanthropic arm of Align Consulting that Christina formed during the pandemic to help small businesses that were struggling to make payroll and keep their doors open during the COVID-19 pandemic, brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars of much-needed funding for her clients.
Christina is currently serving as a Victim’s Advocate Specialist for the Cold Case Foundation and will be featured for Unite US Women’s History Month. Her volunteerism includes serving as an advisory member of Unite US, leading worship at her local church, in addition to thousands of hours of service volunteering for multiple local and state nonprofit boards. Gerken attended the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point where she obtained her undergraduate degree in elementary education and graduate degree in health education.
###
Christina Gerken
Align Consulting Teams
+1 813-520-9368
media@alignconsultingteams.com
Visit us on social media:
LinkedIn