This year's Cosmopolitan Club award went to Lilia Peters in recognition of all Lilia has given and done for the Club over the past 15 years and for her own special warmth and generosity of character, which makes her a living example of the Club's motto: "Above all nations is humanity." Lilia received this award at the 2003 International Dinner held at the YMCA on April 6 of 2003.
Lilia
has served on the Cosmopolitan Club Board for over 15 years and has been
Club Treasurer since 1998. Continuously active in programming since joining
the Cosmopolitan Club, Lilia has been a wonderful spokesperson for Cosmo,
giving talks about the Club to different groups such as the Rotary. She
has organized Philippine dinners and coffee hours and has helped with
many years of our annual Thanksgiving Benefit dinner and with hosting
international receptions to welcome all incoming international students
at the beginning of each semester.
Lilia's husband, Ron, claims that her warm personality and ability to charm others have characterized her throughout her entire life. When she was very small she was captured by Japanese soldiers who were laying a telegraph line through her village in the Philippines during World War II. They picked her up and carried her around and then gave her back to her parents unharmed.
As she grew older, Lilia's graciousness joined a growing concern about others and she became a public health nurse. In 1963 she joined an exchange nursing program which brought nurses to the U.S. In 1966 she married Ron Peters and moved to Chicago where she worked as surgical nurse at Michael Reese Hospital. Lilia and Ron moved to Michigan where Lilia became active in the Association of Operating Room Nurses and Ron finished his Ph.D. In 1976 Ron became a professor in Labor and Industrial Relations at Urbana-Champaign and Lilia worked in surgery at the old Burnham Hospital before returning to the university to study for an M.A. in Health Education and then working at the University's McKinley Health Center until she retired in 1994. As part of her retirement, Lilia took up a new job as a Public Health tuberculosis control officer in Champaign!
Lilia has long been active in community service. In addition to serving on Cosmo's Board for 15 years, she has served as advisor to the Philippine Student Association, on the Board of the Women's Fund for 10 years, on the Board of Champaign County Health Care Consumers for 10 years, and as President of the District 15 Illinois Nurses' Association. When there was no budget for TB medicine, Lilia went to a professional medical meeting, collared the CEO pf a pharmaceutical company that produced TB antibiotics and persuaded him to donate the needed medicine.
Lilia and Ron have two children, a son and a daughter, and two very special grandchildren, much loved and frequently photographed! Both have been very active in community service, taking medical supplies back to Lilia's province in the Philippines for people who otherwise might not obtain them and working with the St. Anthony Alumni Association to help Lilia's former school obtain books, computers, and educational materials. Lilia and Ron also have a longstanding reputation for helping the Return Peace Corps Foundation provide scholarships for deserving Philippine children to go to college in the Philippines and helping newcomers from the Philippines in Urbana-Champaign find apartments, obtain furniture, and get adjusted.
When Ron was asked to describe his wife, he commented that "Lilia is always very thoughtful of others, very hard-working, and very determined--whatever project she undertakes, she does. She's also a wonderful cook, always making sure everyone has enough to eat and has been taken care of." Lilia and Ron both like to travel. They've been to Paris, Budapest, Korea, China, Italy, Romania, and the Panama Canal. The world is their home and all the many people of the world are part of their "family". Together they live our motto each day of their lives: Above all nations is humanity.