2022 Honorees

Legend Honoree

Kim Covington is the Vice President of Community Initiatives at the Arizona Community Foundation. Covington works to amplify ACF’s presence in diverse communities across the state by creating innovative and community collaborations with existing and new partners. From leading the Philanthropy for All Initiative, or convening the community to have conversations about social justice issues in the Courage to Listen, Learn and Act, Covington and ACF believe there is power in partnerships, shared passion and pooled resources. 

Covington left the formal newsroom after 30 years in the television news industry. Along with her time at KPNX 12 News as a News Anchor and School Solutions Reporter, her career spans from Springfield, Missouri and Grand Rapids, Michigan to her hometown St. Louis, Missouri, ensuring diverse voices were present in her stories and news coverage.  She is the recipient of several awards including four Emmy Awards for excellence in reporting, several Associated Press awards,  2022 MLK Living the Dream Award, 2020 Town of Paradise Valley Martin Luther King Diversity Award, the 2019 Valle del Sol Mom of the Year Award, 2017 In-Business Women of Achievement Award, the Black Educators Ragsdale Beacon of Hope Award, Judge Jean Williams Service Award, and the Arizona School Public Relations Association Award of Excellence to name a few.

She currently serves on several boards including the Cronkite Endowment Board of Trustees, ASU Lodestar Leadership Council, City of Phoenix Fast Track Initiatives Ad Hoc Committee to end HIV by 2030, and Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office African American Advisory Council, Two Second Media,  and is a member of the prestigious International Women’s Forum. She is also Co-Chair of the Justice Race Equity Diversity and Inclusion Affinity Group of the Arizona Grantmakers Forum. The wife and mother of two is a graduate of University of Missouri - Columbia Journalism School. 

Community Impact Honoree

Frantz Beasley is the president and co-founder of AZ Common Ground, a Phoenix-based nonprofit which provides services to youth and adults recently released from incarceration, while honoring those victimized by crime. Frantz also founded, Makarios Youth Prevention Project, a nonprofit which provides critical thinking programs, mentoring and advocacy for children of color to assist them in not developing lifestyles of crime or entering the criminal justice system. Frantz serves on Phoenix Mayor, Kate Gallego’s African American Advisory Council, Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams’ African American Advisory Council, and Congressman Ruben Gallego’s African American Advisory Council. Frantz also sits on the Arizona Department of Corrections’ Constituent Services Advisory Committee and is co-chair of the Maricopa County Re-entry Coalition. In 2015, Frantz was awarded The Innovative Program of the Year by the Arizona Correctional Educators because of his work in reducing recidivism in Arizona, and in 2019, Frantz was awarded The Citizen of the Year by the Horace Rumpole American Inn of Court, which is an organization comprised of judges, attorneys, and prosecutors, who recognized Frantz for his service to his community. Frantz is a nationally sought-after public speaker who enjoys working with youth across the country to inspire them to learn their identity, understand the importance of their decisions, and to work for the futures they wish to achieve. Frantz is most proud and honored to be the father of six beautiful children.

Young Hero of the Year

Atllas is a student at Arizona State University, currently in his junior year maintaining a 3.0 GPA where he is majoring in Architecture. He chose architecture because he wants to be a part of creating quality affordable housing. He also has a passion for leadership as he is the president of his fraternity, Sigma Tau Gamma.

In 2021, in the heart of the pandemic, as social justice causes were growing as a response to George Floyd's murder at the hands of Minnesota police officers, on the heels of similar stories across the nation, Atllas wanted to find a sustainable way to contribute to combating injustice in a sustainable way.

After reading up on the leaders of the Civil Rights movement he realized behind each leader there was a community working together in support of that leader. A part of that community were people that used their financial resources, like Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier, to help fund those movements. With that realization Atllas decided that was the path that he wanted to take to empower his community and support other young people who wanted to do more, just like him.

With that inspiration he and co-founder, Jaiden Gillette, launched Students Engaged in Ethical Donations (SEED), which is a youth giving circle that teaches philanthropy to young African American boys (ages 16-21) and gives them a mechanism to put their money together to provide financial support to organizations doing the work to effect change on the causes they believe in. SEED is historic as it is one of the only youth giving circles in the entire nation. In their inaugural year, they raised $50,000 and gave out their first round of community grants to Project Roots and Galpatch on the anniversary of their launch, which is Martin Luther King Day.

The issue area that Atllas and the SEED members are working on is creating equity and community empowerment. He is working to bring financial resources to the young community leaders doing the work, all while creating a new generation of philanthropists. Atllas's goal is to raise $100,000 through SEED that will enable the organization to have a sustainable way to give out grants to youth organizations for years to come. He would also like to see SEED's membership grow to 50 engaged members in Arizona and create a youth engagement model that can be replicated nationally. SEED currently has 10 members and growing. Their membership is comprised of African American young men, ages 16 - 21, who range from high school students at Brophy to college students at ASU. They secured Arizona Community Foundation as their fiscal sponsor and have received financial support from Black Philanthropy Initiative, REAP and many other organizations.