• Hampton and Alex Graham, vice chairs of the Scott-McRae Group, are corporate recruitment co-chairs for the Jacksonville Walk to Defeat ALS. The walk will be April 2 and the Grahams are seeking corporate sponsors. Their father, Tip Graham, died of the disease in July at the age of 61. For information call Katie Shank, Jacksonville coordinator, at (888) 257-1717, ext. 115.
• This morning, 2010 celebrity pastry chef Erika Davis will bake Christmas cookies with 25 school-age children living at the Sulzbacher Center. Davis recently starred on Bravo TV’s “Top Chef – Just Desserts” and works as the executive pastry chef at the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club. She will help the children bake sugar and gingerbread cookies and teach them how to decorate the cookies with icing. The Sulzbacher Center will be home to more than 75 children this Christmas. The cookie-baking today is 9-10:30 a.m. at center’s family dining rooms.
• The Buckner Division of Children’s Home Society of Florida announces two new staff members. Aleasia Kelly is the S.T.E.P.S. (Strengthening Ties and Empowering Parents) Prevention Supervisor and Sonya Thorpe is the Program Supervisor of Healthy Start. Kelly worked as a case manager and parenting specialist in Atlanta for eight years. She has returned to her home state of Florida to be closer to family. Thorpe graduated from the University of North Florida with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a minor in social welfare. She originally founded the Healthy Start program while working for First Coast Family Center before the program moved to CHS.