Member receives 2006 Robert W. Crawford Achievement Prize.

The National Recreation Foundation (NRF) will present Margaret Corbett Daley with the 2006 Robert W. Crawford Achievement Prize for her innovative and influential contributions to advancing recreation opportunities and improving the quality of life for youth in the Chicago area. The award is named in the honor of Robert W. Crawford, long time commissioner of recreation in Philadelphia, former executive director of the NRF, and an active leader in NRPA.

Since 1991, Daley has served as the founder and chair of the celebrated Gallery 37 program. This is a paid apprenticeship program that involves year-round training for youth ages 14 to 21 to learn transferable job skills in visual, literacy, culinary, performing and graphic art under the direction of professional artists. As a result of these successful programs, the Gallery 37 Center for the Arts opened in 1999 in collaboration with the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs.

Inspired by the flourishing interest in Gallery 37, Daley expanded the program under the name After School Matters (ASM). The aim of ASM is to capture the minds and hearts of youth in after-school activities to gain important life experiences and life lessons. This is accomplished through working with mentors and other youth to provide the essential building blocks for success in later life.

The ASM, under Daley's leadership, has grown from nine programs in three high schools in the Chicago area serving 180 teens in 2000, to 853 programs in 35 high schools in 2005 serving more than 23,000 teens. Although ASM is open to all youth in the city of Chicago, it reaches out to the lowest performing schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods in which 93 percent of the students qualify for the free and reduced student lunch program. By the end of 2006, Daley's goal is have the ASM program available in every public high school in the city, serving at least 50 percent of Chicago's high school students.

The efforts of Daley to advance the quality of life for youth in the Chicago area are an inspiration. Through her innovative programs, she has demonstrated the successes of reaching disadvantaged youth through the arts and recreation. Under her creative leadership, thousands of disadvantaged young people have realized the path to more fulfilling futures. For these reasons, the NRF is proud to recognize her outstanding contributions.