All Stars Honored MetLife for 15 Year Partnership at April 13th Gala

At the 2015 All Stars Project gala benefit at Lincoln Center, longtime All Stars Project corporate partner MetLife received a special honor for its support of our innovative youth development programs.  The annual event, this year themed “Development Country: America’s Business Support America’s Youth,” raised $2 million in private funding for ASP programs across the country.All Stars and MetLife have partnered for more than fifteen years on behalf of young people and poor communities. Through financial support, internship sponsorship, pro-bono consulting and volunteerism, MetLife has invested more than $1 million dollars in All Stars nationally, and thousands of hours of priceless employee partnership.

Partnership leaders include: Maria R. Morris, Executive Vice President of Global Employee Benefits; Steven Seltzer, Associate General Counsel; Elizabeth Nieto, Global Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer; Randall A. Stram, Senior Vice President of MetLife’s Group, Voluntary & Worksite Sales National Accounts; Melissa Bergen, Senior Client Relationship Consultant; Paul Blanco, Managing Director, Barnum Financial Group, An Office of MetLife; and Mindee Blanco, Agency Director, Barnum Financial Group, An Office of MetLife.

“MetLife employees in New York City and New Jersey, reached by All Stars early, grassroots fundraisers in the late 1990s were among the first wave of business professionals personally investing in our programs and coming together with inner-city youth,” said ASP President & CEO Gabrielle L. Kurlander.  “They helped to create the new kind of bridge between very different worlds needed to transform the lives of young people and poor communities.”

As All Stars has expanded across the country, employees at MetLife offices in New York City, New Jersey, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas and Bridgeport, CT have engaged in leading afterschool workshops and supervising summer internships for the Development School for Youth (DSY). Volunteers also stepped forward to offer All Stars leadership skills, serving on the national board, regional advisory committees and as program trustees.

In addition to providing support for All Stars programs nationally, the MetLife Foundation has made strategic investments in All Stars growth, including a grant of $250,000 in 2014 to support programming in diverse communities and to implement the training, talent management, and organizational developments critical for All Stars to succeed and lead on the national stage.

“MetLife has been a leader of leaders in expanding this new kind of investment in the growth of young people from low-income communities,” said Ms. Kurlander. “Thanks to MetLife and the MetLife Foundation, All Stars is positioned to move full steam ahead to take our work to the next level, improving lives and communities and engaging poverty and education failure in America.”