Peter Birnbaum, president and chief executive officer of Attorneys’ Title Guaranty Fund Inc. (ATG) of Illinois, was elected president of the Jesse White Foundation board of directors. ATG counsel Sarah Boeckman was elected secretary of the foundation.
The Jesse White Foundation’s mission is to support the Jess White Tumbling Team and Training Program, as well as to administer and operate the Jesse White Scholarship Program and the Jesse White Tutoring Program. The foundation is now raising funds for the construction of the Jesse White Community Center, which will serve as the new home for the foundation and its supporting programs. It is a public/private venture with the City of Chicago, the Chicago Park District and the Foundation. Birnbaum has served on the foundation for five years and has led the efforts to build the center.
Birnbaum has long been involved in serving “at risk” children. He is a past president of Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Metropolitan Chicago. He and his wife have been a Big Brother and a Big Sister for more than 16 years. He is also on the Board of Overseers of Chicago-Kent College of Law and the American Land Title Association. He is a laureate of the Academy of Illinois Lawyers and received the Chicago Bar Association Vanguard Award. He was honored by the Illinois Legislature in House Resolution 384 for his work with children’s charities.
Boeckman worked for ATG as a law clerk in the Chicago office while attending law school at the University of Wisconsin, and was promoted to her current position after passing the bar in July 2012. She was active in several ATG public service projects. In addition to the Jesse White Foundation, she led ATG’s support of the Lawyers Feeling Illinois project, the CARA program that provides job placement services for the underprivileged, a partnership with Urban Initiatives and a volunteer project with a home for abused women.
ATG top members Denis Pierce, of Pierce and Associates, and Ernie Codilis, of Codilis & Associates, have been generous supporters of the Jesse White Foundation as well.