Lifetimes of Achievement 2024

About the Award

Since 1998, Avenidas has been honoring a group of older adults for the contributions they make to the community with the Avenidas Lifetimes of Achievement Awards.

Each year’s honorees are announced at a private reception and celebrated during our annual fundraising event.

Please contact Vice President of Development Nisha Koul, at nkoul@avenidas.org, for more information.

Celebrate Our Honorees

Couldn’t make it to the event? Consider a gift to celebrate our 2024 honorees.

Lifetimes 2024 in the News

Cover of May 3 Palo Alto Weekly showing Lifetimes of Achievement 2024 honorees

Lifetimes of Achievement Makes Cover of Palo Alto Weekly

Lisa Moreno’s Palo Alto Weekly cover story celebrates our six honorees for this year’s Lifetimes of Achievement award: Clayborne Carson, Judy Deggeller, Julie Jerome, Eimi Okano, and Jim and Valerie Stinger.

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Palo Alto Weekly Features Lifetimes Honorees

Jocelyn Dong, Peninsula editorial director for Embarcadero Media Foundation, covers the private reception announcing the Lifetimes honorees in Palo Alto People.

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Meet the 2024 Lifetimes Honorees

Clayborne Carson has devoted his professional life to the study of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the movements he inspired. His award-winning book, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s, remains the definitive study of the courageous activists who challenged the strongholds of segregation.

In 1985, Coretta Scott King selected him to edit and publish the papers of her late husband. In 2005, he founded Stanford University’s Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute to disseminate King-related educational resources to a global audience. In his retirement, he founded The World House Project to work toward a global community where people can “learn somehow to live with each other in peace.”

Dr. Carson and his wife, Susan Ann Carson, have two children and have lived in Palo Alto for more than 40 years.

Childhood literacy, music education, senior programming and nutrition advocate Judy Deggeller has been instrumental in creating meaningful and impactful community-focused programs. From nurturing a library program into the nonprofit Bring Me a Book Foundation or co-authoring a memory, music, and exercise program for dementia patients in skilled care nursing facilities, she has brought innovative programs to the community.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, she delivered meals to neighbors and friends and from those recipes self-published a cookbook, the proceeds of which went to support the Ecumenical Hunger Program. She currently volunteers with the Rosalie Rendu Center in East Palo Alto.

Judy and her husband, Marty (a 2016 Lifetimes Honoree himself!) live in Palo Alto and have two sons and four grandchildren.

Julie Jerome has been leading and influencing local civic institutions for over three decades. A former member of the Palo Alto Unified school board, she served as its president twice.

In addition to being selected for the first class of Leadership Palo Alto, she also offered campaign support to local politicians. She has been the Board President of Palo Alto Community Fund, Adolescent Counseling Services, Palo Alto Community Child Care, and Co-president of Women’s Club of Palo Alto. She remains an active member of the Rotary Club of Palo Alto. In 2004, she received the Tall Tree Award as an Outstanding Citizen Volunteer.

Julie and her husband, Jon, have lived in Palo Alto for 50 years and have one daughter and two grandchildren.

Eimi Okano has changed the face of California textbook education and addiction awareness. As a former elementary school teacher, she witnessed the lack of inclusion of California’s ethnically diverse population in textbooks. She and Jeanette Arakawa prepared a report for the California State Board of Education, advocating for change, which led publishers to diversify K-12 textbook content and illustrations.

In 1973, she was one of the founders of Asian Americans for Community Involvement (AACI), an instrumental force in advocating for reparations for Japanese Americans after WWII and providing social services to Southeast Asian immigrants.

As a County of Santa Clara employee, Eimi established the award-winning County Learning Institute, which provides County employees with access to the most recent and effective drug and alcohol research.

Eimi is also a longtime leader at the Palo Alto Buddhist Temple, including officer roles in the Buddhist Women’s Association. Eimi has lived in Palo Alto for 57 years and has three children and six grandchildren.

Valerie Stinger spent 25 years of her professional career in marketing and development at Bay Area companies such as Smith-Kline Instruments, Syntex Corporation, and Genentech. Then she had a moment of revelation on her Highway 101 commute to work — it was time to give back.

This jumpstarted a tour with the Peace Corps in Morocco, where she taught English at a business university and worked to develop a market for artisans. She continued to advise and mentor micro-businesses in developing countries in Africa including Lesotho, Sudan, Malawi, Ghana, Tanzania, and Uganda, as well the Middle East and the former Soviet Union.

Locally, she has served on community-focused commissions, such as the City of Palo Alto Library Advisory Commission and the Human Relations Commission.

Valerie and her husband Jim have two daughters and have lived in Palo Alto for 50 years.

Jim Stinger was a research engineer at Hewlett-Packard for more than 30 years, where his work in software development was awarded numerous patents which fostered the growth of “The HP Way.” His 2005 retirement allowed him to nurture other interests, such as watercolor painting, and to devote his time more fully to community service.

He has tirelessly supported the YMCA of the Mid-Peninsula, the Challenge Learning Center, Avenidas, American Diabetes Association Tour de Cure, Palo Alto Community Child Care, the Society of West-Coast Artists San Francisco Chapter, and the Kiwanis Club of Palo Alto. His paintings have developed a fan following and are sought after at auctions held for philanthropic causes.

Jim and his wife Valerie have two daughters and have lived in Palo Alto for 50 years.

2024 Lifetimes honorees, 4 standing, 2 seated — From left to right: Julie Jerome, Jim Stinger, Clayborne Carson, Eimi Okano, Judy Deggeller, and Valerie Stinger. Photo by Eliane Neukermans.

Thank you, honorees, for the extraordinary and diverse contributions you’ve made to our community. It is a privilege to share your accomplishments with your friends, family, and community. Many congratulations – Clayborne, Judy, Julie, Eimi, Valerie, and Jim — for your years of impactful service and for your new Lifetimes of Achievement Award!
Margo Rich Ogus, Lifetimes Chair and Avenidas Board Member