A healthy, vibrant community is built one child, one life, one business, one investment at a time.

The Studer Community Institute is honoring that spirit with the Give Back Award, a new feature of the Studer Community Institute’s EntreCon business conference for 2017. It will be given in honor of one of SCI’s founding board members, Blaise Adams.

Blaise was chairman of SCI’s Business Development Committee. He truly valued the business community and developing leaders. He was a great mentor to the Institute’s staff and a driving force for helping small businesses succeed.

Through his work with Junior Achievement as a volunteer and a board member, Blaise was a champion of financial literacy programming for young people in the Pensacola area not only through Junior, but also in his professional work in banking. He was truly an inspiration and his work for young people in Pensacola was a tremendous gift that is being cultivated and will last a lifetime for hundreds of youth in our community.

The EntreCon Give Back Award is given in honor of Blaise Adams.

Blaise believed in the vision of EntreCon and the need to invest in the community to make it better for everyone.

The Give Back Award — given in Blaise’s honor — will go to a person who takes the time to give back to our community while inspiring others to do the same. This person’s conviction, courage and contributions must be contagious.

The award honors someone who, in the past year, has gone far beyond what was or could have been expected in contributing to the quality of life in our community. This person enhanced the well-being of the community with his or her time, resources and talents.

Centennial Bank supports this award in honor of Blaise Adams and is committed to a $2,500 donation to Junior Achievement and will match up to another $2,500 for a total of $5,000. Quint and Rishy Studer will match donations up to $10,000 in honor of Blaise. All money raised for the Give Back Award in Blaise’s honor will go to the success of Junior Achievement.

If you are interested in contributing, please contact Nicole Webb Bodie at [email protected].