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The Chamber’s 2016 recognition dinner, November 5, will bring together several hundred people to celebrate this year’s slate of honorees – Charlie Eadie, Teresa Thomae, Sam Farr, Calliope Waterworks, and the Santa Cruz incarnations of the Warriors and Shakespeare. In one form or another the Chamber has been recognizing our community’s leaders for the past 127 years... before UCSC and Cabrillo, before Highway 1 and Highway 17, before Santa Cruz had a Boardwalk. Like many other communities, we have a lineage that forms our essence and defines our capacities. We will honor these men, women and institutions next week as members of a long stream of visionaries, leaders, investors, and risk-takers. Collectively their work has shaped both what Santa Cruz is today and created the launching pad for what we could become tomorrow. They are the building blocks of our social and economic “genetic code.” But these awards are also a reminder to each of us of the importance of our own investment… our own effort and dedication to making and sustaining the community we want to be. We each bring vision, leadership, and investment that are the foundations and forms of today and the seeds of tomorrow. It is our collective commitment to family, friends, and community that turns our shared visions into reality. Every resident has dreams, notions of what could be, and the capacity to invest in that future – collectively, our future. It is this ability to act together, to combine our energy, wisdom, and will to communal outcomes that has defined Santa Cruz for the past century and a half… that defines the form and success of every community. The Chamber gives these awards in appreciation of the recipients’ hard work, their willingness to undertake measured risks, their skills in collaborating with others, their knowledge and wisdom they bring to their work, and, above all, their investment of themselves in our collective well-being. However, we also give these awards in celebration of our shared success and as motivation for each of us to put our shoulders to the wheels the make community. The Chamber invites you to join us in this celebration next Saturday night. Click here to register.