Our amazing volunteers!

Each year, more than 1,000 people volunteer for our organization. 

Because of these dedicated people, we’re able to do so much more. Their efforts help advance our mission, allowing our events, campaigns and programs to fulfill their potential. 

In short, these generous souls make us look really good!

Our annual volunteer appreciation party, which we held last night, is Active Transportation Alliance’s opportunity to publicly thank these people for their big-hearted efforts. 

A highlight of the event each year is recognizing individual volunteers, and congratulating them for a job well done. 

Here’s a quick look at our award winning volunteers of 2015.  

Emerging Leader Award: Jose Briceño
Jose helped with leading rides and enlisting other ride leaders for the Go Albany Park initiative that Active Trans has been involved in during the past year. In addition to his work with Go Albany Park, Jose has also provided extensive support, time and leadership to Slow Roll Chicago and Bikes N’ Roses. 

Under the Radar Award: Dave Simmons and Lee Skinner
Dave and Lee spearheaded the multi-year campaign to develop a bike plan for Elk Grove Village in Chicago’s Northwest Suburbs. They worked tirelessly with the city, park district and other partners to organize a committee, research plans and develop a plan for the city. Dave also heads Friends of Cycling in Elk Grove Village.

Event Volunteer of the Year: Theta Lambda Beta at the University of Illinois at Chicago
Theta Lambda Beta has been great contributor at our events for many years. At the end of each event, when all of our day-of-event volunteers head home and our staff is exhausted, they arrive with a fresh crew of strong volunteers and smiling faces to help with breaking down the event and loading everything back into our office. 

Important Cog Award: Milan Stevanovich 
Milan has been a long-time volunteer for Active Trans and has served in a leadership role at each of our bike ride fundraiser events, helping in the festival area. He is unstoppable, as evidenced by the time he showed up to oversee our bike valet program at one of our fundraising rides despite having a broken collar bone. 

Suburban Advocate of the Year: Ken Obel 
Ken led a long-term effort to require the Illinois Department of Transportation to enforce its own Complete Streets policy while it resurfaced Sheridan Rd. The result is that IDOT is adding sharrows and signage. To achieve this goal, Ken recruited residents of other communities in the north suburbs and worked on spreading information about the campaign through social media. He also was the catalyst in passing a Complete Streets policy and a performing a cycling survey in his hometown of Wilmette.

City Advocate of the Year: Delores Lucas 
As a neighborhood leader in the Altgeld Gardens community on Chicago’s Far South Side, Deloris (pictured: top photo, middle) established a group to work with residents to identify and resolve safety and mobility issues facing the community. Since then, Deloris has lead the group’s work to address a number of issues, including lack of safe pedestrian access to important destinations like the local grocery store. Thanks to Deloris’ work, the city of Chicago is now beginning an active transportation study of the entire community area — a huge victory for local advocates and an important milestone in the community’s campaign for safer streets. 

Thanks again to these award winners and all the tireless volunteers who are working to improve biking, walking and transit in the region.