Honoree

Matt Logelin

In the span of 27 hours in March 2008, Matt Logelin felt the immense joy of fatherhood and the profound heartbreak of losing his high school sweetheart, Liz, just after the birth of their daughter, Madeline. Matt’s courage and heartfelt honesty captured the attention of hundreds of thousands of readers as he shared his journey on his blog, Matt, Liz and Madeline: Life and Death, All in a 27-Hour Period, which drew tens of thousands of daily visitors at its height and connected people far and wide to their story.

In 2009, he established The Liz Logelin Foundation to assist families who find themselves in similarly devastating circumstances. That same year he left his job at Yahoo! to travel with Maddy and write his memoir, Two Kisses for Maddy: A Memoir of Loss and Love, which became a New York Times Best Seller and touched readers across the world.

The impact of his story continued to grow: Two Kisses for Maddy served as the inspiration for the 2021 feature film Fatherhood, starring Kevin Hart (his obvious doppelganger) and produced by Higher Ground Productions. Matt has also appeared on national television and in major media, including People Magazine, Oprah Winfrey, and has shared his voice as a keynote speaker and advocate, bringing visibility to widowed families and single parents everywhere.

Today, Matt is married to the love of his second life, Lizzie, and together they’ve welcomed two daughters, Bernadette and Agatha, into Maddy’s life.