Thursday, August 22, 2024
Food Lines Open: 11:30 am
Program: 11:30 am - 1pm
McNease Convention Center 

Tickets for Sale Summer 2024

Admission is free but registration is required

2023 Speaker Information: We are excited to announce that Christina Meredith will be our guest speaker for our 2023 United Way Campaign Kick-Off Luncheon!  Empowering others with her inspiring life story, Christina Meredith survived sexual, mental, and emotional abuse, incest, trauma, aging out of foster care, poverty, and homelessness to forge a life committed to helping others. Through strong faith, hard work, and creativity she went on to become Miss California, graduate college, founded her own nonprofit foundation, and turned her enlistment into a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army.

As told in her best-selling book, CinderGirl: My Journey Out of the Ashes to a Life of Hope, (now under development to become a major motion picture) during appearances on the Today Show and before speaking to audiences nationwide, Christina’s story celebrates the transformative power of dreams, and the potential within all of us triumph over adversity. "My entire story is about hope, faith, hard work, achieving the dream and the purpose that you have been given in this life, and not allowing things to deter you because circumstances change," she says. "With hard work and a little faith, you can make them change."

Christina Meredith is from the oldest city in the Nation, Saint Augustine, Florida. Christina endured years of abuse before entering the foster care system. Passed from family to family, Christina finally landed in the home where she remained until she aged out of the system at 18.

After graduating from Allen D. Nease high school with nowhere to turn, Christina spent over a year homeless and living in her car after aging out of foster care. Eager for a fresh start, Christina moved out to California where she took a series of odd jobs, eventually catching the eye of a pageant recruiter who suggested she compete in the Miss California pageant. In April 2013, Christina won the title of Ms. California and has since dedicated herself to speaking out on behalf of abused children all over the country.

She has been the recipient of ISF’s 2019 Community Impact Award from the state of Texas and her work for child welfare reform across Texas, opening for the Special Olympics, speaking to congress on the foster care crisis pushing for bigger mental health budgets specifically trauma therapy services for all foster youth, the state of Florida had her to speak to hundreds of foster youth and state workers teaching trauma awareness, the city of Saint Augustine hailed her a hometown hero awarding her the yearly Child Abuse Prevention month from the Saint John’s Commissioners office, She has spoken all over the country sharing her story, from appearances on the Today Show, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, and others; Christina’s story has encouraged millions that they too can heal from the wounds of trauma becoming all they dream to be. Her mission to change the way America handles foster youth is well on its way as she continues to travel the country as a foster care activist and mental health advocate as a Nationally sought-after Speaker. She has launched her foundation the CHRISTINA MEREDITH FOUNDATION that advocates for foster care reform, human trafficking laws, homelessness initiatives, and mental health programs.

Christina’s first book, CinderGirl, a national bestseller, published by Harper Collins, is slated to become a major motion picture. She concurrently serves in the US ARMY as a Signal Intelligence Officer in the US Army. She has a bachelor’s degree in political science with a focus on Foreign Affairs. She is obtaining her masters in Global Security and splits her time between Jacksonville, FL and Austin, Texas.