Marion Hill, Jamaican-American attorney with the firm of Hamilton Miller & Birthstall, will be honored as one of the 2018 Miami Southridge Alumni Hall of Fame inductees on June 8, 2018. The ceremony will take place at the 2nd Annual Alumni Gala, where the association will induct new Spartan Alumni into the Hall of Fame at the Miami Marriott Dadeland.
The inductees were nominated for the honor by their fellow Spartans and then selected by a committee comprising Association members on the basis of several criteria. These include providing a role model for young people, displaying leadership at the local, state, national and/or international level in their chosen careers, and distinguishing themselves in society through their work or donation of time.
Marion Hill was the inaugural Ruth Shack Leadership Award honoree as well as a past Miami Foundation trustee. He believes his Miami Fellows experience has shaped his life story and the legacy of leadership and service he wants to leave in the Greater Miami area.
Hill is originally from Kingston, Jamaica, and attended law school at Florida State University. He decided he wanted to work with people of immigrant descent, especially those from the Caribbean, having done so during his college period. As he looked for ways to make deeper connections with the Miami community, he learned about the Miami Fellows at The Miami Foundation. The emerging leadership program appealed to Hill and he applied and was ultimately chosen as one of the inaugural class of the program.
Hill says the program provided him with a sense of what the community was about and what his role was in it. Over a two-year period, Follows completed hands-on labs and interacted with different parts of the local community and communities in Brazil. Hill was with the Fellows from 1999 to 2001, and the experience represented a turning point for him in which he realized that he would live in Miami for the rest of his life.
Since completing the program, Hill started his own law firm, served on various boards as a corporate lawyer, and started a radio program to have a greater impact on the community. The Miami Fellows gave him the opportunity for self-discovery that he values highly. When his wife Carla became ill, the Miami Foundation also helped the couple start the Carla Hill and Hazel Bethel Breast Cancer Awareness and Organ Donation Fund. The Fund has expanded access to mammograms for women and raised awareness of how breast cancer impacts young women of color. Hill believes that “philanthropy is democratic” and that it doesn’t matter how much money someone may have because every citizen can make a difference in transforming the Miami community.
Marion Hill’s fellow 2018 inductees include:
- Miami Dade Police Chief Juan Perez, Class of 1986
- Sean McCrackine, Class of 1988
- Shannon Stewart, Class of 1992
- Gioconda Gallo- Etienne, Class of 1999
- Kimberly Perantoni, Class of 2000
- Captain Kevin Barrett, Class of 2004
- Folker Rojas, Class of 2004
- Georgina Haig, Class of 2007
- Jennifer Estime, Class of 2008
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