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Answering the Call
Foundation Celebrates Its Own Lifetime Service Achiever
By Crystal N. Hill
Cheers and applause greeted Jared Hughes, director of Development Operations, as he was presented with the President's Call to Service Award, the highest honor given through the President's Volunteer Service Award (PVSA) program. Before a crowd of Foundation staff, President and CEO Robert Goodwin pinned the prestigious Award on Jared's lapel. Toyja Somerville, senior director of Recognition Programs, announced that Jared, with 4,191 completed service hours, is the first Foundation employee to earn any level of PVSA recognition.
"It is a privilege to present this award to Jared because he has demonstrated the type of ongoing, committed service that this program seeks to honor," says Goodwin. "I am confident that Jared's achievement will inspire his peers and this will be the first of many such presentations."
In his 2002 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush issued a challenge to all Americans to make time to help their neighbors, communities, and Nation through service. He called on each person to dedicate at least 4,000 hours – or two years – to service over the course of their lives.
Jared's record of service dates back to 1979 when he was a safety monitor at Luther Burbank Primary School. This first service activity was a preamble to a lifetime of service that includes founding the Landmark West Prep School Community Service Program, which is now mandatory for all students, serving as the first-ever youth representative of the All Saints Episcopal Church Vestry, helping to build a library in Augua Verde, Mexico, and traveling on youth peace missions to the former Soviet Union, Israel, Jordan, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip. Most recently, Jared served Washington National Cathedral for seven years as a lay reader, usher, and volunteer fundraiser.
Currently, Jared volunteers with Westmoreland Area Citizens Organization community patrol in Takoma Park, Md., as a friendly visitor at the Goodwin House retirement community, and serves on the vestry of his church, the Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Silver Spring, Md. He and his wife, Nadia, volunteer regularly for special events and fundraisers through the D.C. area.
When asked what this award means to him, Jared responded, "My parents taught me early on to have a strong volunteer ethic of helping others in need and I've been trying to do my part to make the world a kinder and more peaceful place ever since. I'm honored to receive this award from President Bush. Strangers stop me, asking me if I'm a member of Congress, and to find out what this cool pin I'm wearing is all about. It's great to be able to tell them how they can go about getting one just like it—which is really the main purpose of the award in the first place."
For more than a year, the Points of Light Foundation has administered the PVSA on behalf of The President's Council for Service & Civic Participation, created in 2003 by President Bush to find ways to recognize the valuable contributions volunteers are making in our Nation. More than 250,000 President's Awards have been earned to date, with companies, nonprofits, faith communities, and schools across the country serving as certifying organizations for volunteers that achieve qualifying numbers of service hours in a year or a lifetime.
To find out more about the PVSA, to start your own record of service, to sign up to be a certifying organization or a corporate sponsor, visit www.presidentialserviceawards.gov.
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