HIGH POINT, N.C. — Summer Classics’ Harold Hudson has been named a 2025 recipient of City of Hope’s lifetime achievement award.
Current vice president and former president of Summer Classics Private Label and a longtime ICFA board member and former chair, Hudson has been a consistent force behind the home furnishings industry’s contributions to the California-based research and treatment center for cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases.
Along with Jeff Child, president of Salt Lake City-based RC Willey, Hudson will receive The City of Hope’s International Home Furnishings Industry Group Lifetime Achievement Award during the West Coast Golf, Tennis & Pickleball Tournament to be held June 9. Held in Coto de Caza, California, the event is one of the industry’s flagship fundraisers for cancer and diabetes research.
The ICFA’s support of City of Hope began in 2017 when the board of directors chose the research and teaching hospital as its philanthropy partner and announced the donation of proceeds from that year’s awards gala to the organization.
Hudson witnessed the life-changing care occurring at City of Hope the following year when the ICFA board took a campus tour during a board meeting in Pasadena.
“When I learned of the worldwide impact this medical organization has had on improving the quality of lives of cancer patients and heard the compassion in the voices of those we met that day, I became committed to doing all I could to help,” he said. “Their efforts deeply touched my heart, as we lost my dad to lung cancer 27 years ago.”
When Hudson became chair of ICFA’s board in 2021, increasing the group’s support for City of Hope was among his priorities. “I encouraged our members to participate in the annual International Home Furnishings Industry West Coast Golf and Tennis Tournament,” Hudson said. “For the past seven years, through the generosity of Bew White III, the owner and founder of Summer Classics, our company has sponsored a foursome, creating a challenge to others in our industry to step up and support this fundraiser.”
In 2024, the industry raised more than $960,000 in one day when Catherine and Richard Frinier were the honorees. Hudson hopes to raise more than $1 million in contributions for 2025.
“From the patient stories, like the one from an 18-year-old girl who was diagnosed with cancer when she was 10 and never thought she’d live to graduate from high school, to the doctors who have shown me their humanity and humor while we play golf, to my latest visit to the campus last fall, I always come away with the good feeling that funds we raise will be used in the very best way to find ways to cure cancer and enhance lives,” Hudson said. “That makes it easy for me to be ‘a little pushy and go off the script,’ as Jackie (Hirschhaut, ICFA senior advisor) sometimes puts it, and ask my colleagues to dig deeper.”
Hudson supports the creative ways ICFA seeks to increase industry contributions to City of Hope. These include “Pink Out” days for breast cancer awareness during Casual Market Atlanta and, most recently, a “Putt for Hope” contest during the Elevate Educational Conference in Tampa in February.
“At $20 a putt, we raised almost $700 towards our goal,” Hudson said. Summer Classics will offer another “Putt for Hope” event during its Saturday night party at the April High Point Market.
It will be a family affair for Hudson when he receives the award at the West Coast tournament dinner in June. His son, daughter, daughter-in-law and wife of 32 years, Amy, will be there to share in the honor. So will the memory of his mother, whom he lost earlier this year at the age of 94.
“I took my mom’s advice when I committed to leading my industry in supporting the City of Hope. She always told me to ‘do your best every time,’” he said. “That’s what they are striving for at City of Hope, and I hope that our industry will continue to make significant contributions to their success.”
