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Team leaders attended the 29th Annual MLK Holiday Breakfast on
Martin Luther King Jr. Day at the Armory in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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WATCH: Click here to see coverage of the event.
This was the 29th year for the Annual MLK Holiday Breakfast, which was held on Monday in Minneapolis. The event celebrates King’s legacy of service and inspires others to live out his dream in their communities and throughout the world. Company representatives were among 2,500 Twin Cities area professionals, politicians and community members.
Keynote speaker, Don Lemon, is an Emmy Award-winning news anchor and journalist, who currently hosts “CNN Tonight.” In 2009, Ebony named him as one of the 150 most influential African Americans. He has won an Edward R. Murrow award for his coverage on the Washington, D.C. snipers, as well as various other awards for his reporting on the AIDS epidemic in Africa and Hurricane Katrina.
“One thing that really stuck with me was when Mr. Lemon asked us to challenge our own beliefs daily,” said Home Service Division Vice President Hugo Guerra. “I was raised to always stick to the beliefs that I learned early in life and that was that. What I took from his comments was that the world has changed and we all evolve. It’s OK for our own beliefs to evolve as well.”
Lemon’s “you own your own mind” philosophy resonated the most with Senior Vice President of Global Supply Chain Carolyn Tokiwa.
“Having grown up in the same era as Don Lemon and having experienced similar challenges with being the ‘different’ person in the neighborhood and classroom, I can relate to how important it is to hold onto your beliefs, find creative ways to work both within and outside the system to realize your dreams, and never give up,” she said.
Before the event, the attending team of leaders also encouraged employees from our locations in Bloomington and Marshall, Minnesota, to enter a short essay describing how Martin Luther King Jr's life and contributions inspire them. The authors of the most inspiring essays would be invited to the event. The two employees selected were Information Security Project Manager Dawnlynn Greeney and Customer Sales Planning Manager Food Service Patima Hunter.
