[CHAMBER DAY & EVE 2012 - WEDNESDAY, MAY 2 - SAVE THE DATE!!!]

We're hoping for another big year for Chamber Day and specifically for the Chamber Challenge. In these uncertain economic times, it's hard to predict what the future holds for events like ours. But we hope those of you who care about our Chamber can dig deep once again, and help us provide the financial security net that our Chamber - and we - need.

And we're off to an excellent start.

We start off with our $1,000 Gold donors and the pack is led this year by the folks at Sport Chalet. Clara Galvan & Aubery Shaughnessy, two longtime SC employees, also donate personal time to the Steering Committee. Also joining them at the Gold level is longtime Chamber support John Delaney (who will also be going out on a boat and dining with us at Chamber Eve).

Silver level donors ($500) include Eo Ong & the Burbank Dive Club, Karl Huggins (Chamber Director), and Susy Horowitz (also a member of the Chamber day Steering Committee). All have been longtime supporters of our Chamber.

But once again this year, the Challenge will also serve as a memorial to a key figure in the diving industry who passed away just this past Saturday and that would be Roger Hess. Roger was a true local diving pioneer, graduating as an instructor from the L.A. County UICC in 1955. He owned numerous dive boats including the Rio Rita and the Maverick, but is probably best remembered for the Charisma (now the Great Escape) and the Encore.

Roger is also as closely associated with this event as you can get because he literally invented it. We refer to him often as the "Father of Chamber Day". It was his idea back in 1989 that the boat operators and the diving community should get together for a day of diving with all the proceeds going to fund the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber, then in real danger of losing County operational funding. That sprit of working together that Roger fostered back then still lives on today some twenty-three years later.

So this year you will notice that some of our Challenge donors will have (RH) after their names. This indicates that they have donated to the Roger Hess Memorial Challenge, in memory of Roger. Though we miss Roger terribly, his memory will live on through these memorial donations and this event.

So we're off and running. Who’s next? Who will help push past $5000?

CHAMBER CHALLENGE 2012 - $4,000 total (Updated 3/16412 @ 4PM - first update)
New donors are in bold type and marked with an asterisk.
Donations made in memory of Roger Hess have (RH) after the donor's name

Gold ($1,000 and up)
* Sport Chalet
* John Dleaney

Silver ($500-999)
* Eo Ong & the Burbank Dive Club
* Karl Huggins
* Susy Horowitz

Bronze ($100-499)
* Joel Geldin
* Stephen Benavides
* Dana Rodda
* k-;)
* Dr. Allen Dekelboum

Ken Kurtis
Chairman, Chamber Day/Eve 2012
& the entire Chamber Day 2011 Committee
www.chamberday.org
310/652-4990