On Saturday, May 18, 2019, the JDRF Greater Bay Area Chapter will host the 21^st Annual Hope Gala, bringing prominent business leaders and families from around the Bay Area to The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco for an evening of fundraising, celebration, and networking. The event will benefit JDRF and type 1 diabetes (T1D) research.

Each year at the Hope Gala, JDRF presents the Living & Giving Award to individuals who have demonstrated exceptional dedication to the foundation’s mission of improving lives today and tomorrow by accelerating life-changing breakthroughs to cure, treat, and prevent type 1 diabetes (T1D) and its complications. This year’s honorees, Laura and Mark Hawkins, were selected for their extraordinary commitment to JDRF and to the health and well-being of our community.

Mark is President and Chief Financial Officer of Salesforce, the cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco. When he served as Corporate Chair of the 2017 JDRF One Walk, San Francisco, under Mark’s leadership, the San Francisco Walk raised more than $1,000,000 that year. He also helped mobilize Salesforce on a national level and their Walk team raised over $490,000. Additionally, Salesforce inspired other companies to get involved, collectively raising over $147,000 for JDRF’s mission. Although neither have a family connection to T1D, Laura and Mark continued their involvement with the San Francisco Walk in 2018, and Salesforce helped incentivize participants to raise well over $1,000,000 for the second year in a row.

Mark has more than 30 years of experience with leading finance organizations at global software and technology companies, including Salesforce, Autodesk, Logitech, Dell and Hewlett–Packard. He serves on the board of SecureWorks, a global leader in cyber security solutions, and Plex Systems, a leader in cloud based ERP for manufacturers.

Laura and Mark are active leaders in philanthropy, supporting not only JDRF, but the American Heart Association, the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, the Salvation Army, and Living Water Mission, a nonprofit based in Michigan that digs wells in Kenya for its citizens to have clean drinking water. The couple are enthusiastic supporters of their alma mater, Michigan State University.

Laura is deeply passionate about her work at House of Hope in Los Gatos, a food pantry that she has supported since its creation in 2009. Laura also knits crib blankets for Project Linus – a nationwide organization that gives handmade blankets to children in need when they leave the hospital.

JDRF is pleased to present this year’s Living & Giving Award to Laura and Mark Hawkins. Thank you and congratulations!

Visit www.jdrf/bayarea/hope-gala for more details about the 2019 JDRF Hope Gala.