service

Rich Mullins has volunteered with the Big Brothers/Big Sisters for the last 29 years. As a Big Brother mentor to eight young men, Mullins has been a male role model in their lives. With weekly one-on-one visits with each child for several years, Mullins assisted the children with their homework and social skills. Because the children’s families could not afford the luxury of a vacation, each child was included in vacation trips with Mullins’ family.

Planting the seeds of community is something for which 17 year-old Anna Wherry has a passion.  In addition to attending high school and volunteering with the Baltimore Medical System, Anna has been working to make life in the United States easier for a group of Bhutanese refugees. Anna has worked to introduce urban farming techniques to members of a refugee community in Baltimore, whose citizens suffer from insufficient access to food. After meeting Khada Nanda Upret, a Nepali refugee from Bhutan, Anna discovered that many Bhutanese refugees grew up surviving on their crops. 

At twelve, Jacob Liberman stood apart as a volunteer planting trees and, two years later, is using his enthusiasm and organizational ability by joining the organization, treepeople.org, and creating a 41-volunteer project.

With a smile on her face, Kittie Caston happily accepts whatever challenges are before her, and she embraces others for their abilities, not disabilities. Why? Being deaf taught Kittie to be non-judgmental and give people with disabilities the opportunity to shine. Wanting others to have that chance at a normal life, Kittie’s 30 years of volunteer service with the Special Olympics in Georgia helps individuals with disabilities learn discipline, team camaraderie and self-confidence.

A visionary has sight for a cause, Allison Bradford Gorrie can relate. She may be visually impaired, but Allison sees the impact of charity pristinely. Born with a birth defect that causes low vision, Allison, 16,has adapted to blindness and is a lifetime patient of the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Department of Ophthalmology. Not wanting her impairment to deter her from teenaged independence, she is learning to use bioptic driving glasses and other visual aids with the help of the UAB Center for Low Vision Rehabilitation.