First Star's Ninth Annual Celebration For Children's Rights "Come Be A Kid Again" May 5, 2013 Honoring Humanitarians & Visionaries For Their Devotion To Helping Foster Children

LOS ANGELES, CA, May 02, 2013 (Press-News.org) First Star, the leading national advocacy group dedicated to improving life for child victims of abuse and neglect, holds its ninth annual Celebration for Children's Rights event May 5, 2013 at the Skirball Cultural Center. Families from the Los Angeles business, entertainment, and legal communities, along with many celebrities, will join First Star in honoring this year's award recipients — Joseph Calabrese, Chair of the Entertainment, Sports & Media practice at O'Melveny & Myers; Michelle Hagen & Lynn McCracken, SVP Universal Partnerships & Television Director; Dr. Jennifer Jones & Mr. Mike Jones, Clinical Psychologist/Author & Founder/Chairman of Science, LLC; and Elizabeth Kim & Michael Song, Los Angeles Superior Court, Juvenile Division & Angel Investor, Entrepreneur - for their humanitarian efforts on behalf of children. 14-time Emmy winner, Fox 11 and My13 News anchor, Christine Devine returns as Emcee.

• Celebration For Children's Rights is First Star's annual fundraiser to help fund reform efforts and academy programs that seek to change the appalling statistic that fewer than 3% of foster youth benefit from a college education, as compared to close to 30% of the general population.
• Celebration is a celebrity & family-driven casual event with live entertainment, carnival games and prizes
• Event sponsors include NBCUniversal, O'Melveny & Myers LLC, and American Airlines.
• First Star opened first-of-its-kind summer academy for foster youth at UCLA in 2011, 2013 program begins in July
• University of Rhode Island academy program enters its second year this Summer; George Washington University begins it's first summer immersion and University of Connecticut in funding phase, expected program to commence in 2014; additional universities expressing interest in program Santa Clara and University of Illinois

First Star is a national 501(c)(3) public charity established in 1999 to strengthen the rights and improve the lives of America's abused and neglected children through education, public policy, legislative reform, and litigation. Our nonpartisan, multidisciplinary approach fosters collaborative action among organizations, advocates, practitioners and policy-makers working to benefit children.

We work towards a day when children's voices are heard and when their basic civil rights are recognized if they must pass through the child protective system. The professionals who these children interact with are well-trained, well-coordinated, and fairly compensated, and the court system that adjudicates their welfare and determines their future is open and accountable to the public for its actions and decisions.

For additional information, please contact Natalie Svider at NSvider@gmail.com.