Jon Bon Jovi and Matt Lauer Have This in Common

On

Make A Difference Day

2013, Oct. 26, millions of you spread out across your communities to help your neighbors by cleaning parks, feeding the hungry and much more.

Jessica Carscadden gets a hug for the work she does collecting donated stuffed animals for police and fire departments to give scared kids on emergency calls.

During

National Volunteer Week

, we honor the 14 Make A Difference honorees who saw needs and found creative ways to fill them. Today

USA WEEKEND

and Points of Light, with

Newman’s Own

, will host a celebration for the winners in Washington, D.C., joined by singer Jon Bon Jovi, “Today” show hosts Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie, and other notable figures. Below, read about the honorees (and click

here

for ideas on creating your own Make A Difference Day project for 2014):

• Bailey Snow, 16, of Granite Bay, Calif., with eight volunteers, packaged 60 to 70 cans of donated Legos for distribution to local police departments, domestic violence organizations and Boys & Girls Clubs.
• High school student Elijah Rodriguez of Leonardo, N.J., arranged a charity walk that raised $7,000 for families still homeless a year after Hurricane Sandy.
• Students from Escambia Charter School in Cantonment, Fla., with help from parents and teachers, delivered 300 pounds of canned goods and snacks to a food pantry and the USO in nearby Pensacola, as well as 60 boxes of clothes for three shelters.
• Jessica Carscadden, 11, of San Diego rallied about 60 volunteers and oversaw donations of roughly 3,000 stuffed bears for police and firefighters to give to injured or frightened children on emergency calls.
• Fourteen-year-old Jessica Collins of Shelbyville, Ky., coordinated 85 volunteers who made blankets, quilts and pillowcases; donated $2,000 for supplies; and delivered 27 beds to kids in need.
• Nick Katsoris of Eastchester, N.Y., used his “Loukoumi” children’s book series to motivate more than 20,000 kids to take on projects, from making rainbow loom bracelets for patients at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to collecting canned goods for homeless shelters.
• Operation Access, a nonprofit in Sonoma County, Calif., joined with a group of ophthalmologists to save the eyesight of area agricultural workers and day laborers.
• Peggy McGee of Green Valley, Ariz., and her fellow Women of Quail Creek club members donated homemade hats and other clothes; bed and kitchen linens; and other items – 3,000 in all – to the Southern Arizona VA Health Care System.
• Volunteers from Playworks – an organization that provides kids with opportunities for safe, meaningful play – refurbished picnic tables, worked on landscaping and more for a center that serves kids with disabilities as well as seniors and people with special needs.
• The students and staff of the University of Akron in Ohio tackled 60 community projects, from helping public housing residents clean their apartments to weatherproofing a home for veterans.
• In the City of Cleveland, Tenn., 800 volunteers worked on dozens of activities ranging from a YMCA job fair that helped 64 people find employment to an effort in which nearly 75 Lee University students assembled backpacks for 10,000 children filled with snacks, toothpaste, shampoo and other basics.
• The Volunteer Action Center at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Ark., rallied 1,326 volunteers for projects that ranged from cleaning and stocking the campus food pantry to creating puppets for a local literacy program.
• In Weirton, W.Va., the Interact Clubs of Weirton Madonna and Weir high schools helped collect 5,000 pounds of food for local pantries; donate more than 300 pairs of kids’ socks, backpacks and other clothing to Weirton Heights Elementary School; and helped a family whose house exploded in a natural-gas accident, killing their teenage daughter.
• The volunteers of the Assistance League led 93 communities nationwide in donating 103,036 books to schools, foster programs and shelters.

A `Priceless’ Reaction to a Bunch of Books

In honor of National Volunteer Week, April 6-12, USA Weekend and Points of Light are recongizing the 2013 Make A Difference Day honorees, who will be celebrated in Washington, D.C., on April 10. Here we tell the story about volunteers across the country making sure kids have books to read.

An Assistance League volunteer from San Mateo County,
Calif., bonds with a child over a donated book.

After rounding up an amazing 113,000 books for at-risk children on their first Make A Difference Day in 2012, the women of the Assistance League surprised themselves by nearly copying that success last October: 2,666 members led 93 of the national service organization’s 120 communities in donating 103,036 books to foster programs, schools, shelters, libraries and Boys & Girls Clubs.

“For many of these kids, it may be the only book they own or the only birthday gift they get,” says Kathy Youngman, chairman of the Assistance League’s Make A Difference Day book drive. “So this really is a national event with local impact.”

The San Antonio, Texas, chapter alone gave 14,400 books; Albuquerque, N.M., 5,500. In suburban Detroit, “a retired teacher who’d been collecting books her students had loved decided Make A Difference Day was the perfect time to donate all 868,” says Youngman.

The reaction of book-hungry children was “priceless,” says Southern Utah chapter president Jillene Lander. When her chapter delivered 53 titles to a third-grade classroom at La Verkin Elementary School, where more than half of students live below the poverty line, “kids immediately paired off and started reading to each other. One boy grabbed `Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ and said, ‘I’ve been waiting my whole life to read this!’ He just lit up.”

Look for the 2014 book drive to beat 2012’s numbers: “Since we won the Make A Difference Day Award last year, chapters have been getting more attention and donors in their communities,” says Youngman. “I’m sure we’ll be close to 100 percent of our chapters participating next time.”

Check out the other Make A Difference Day honorees at www.makeadifferenceday.com/winners.

Warming Hearts and Soles

In honor of National Volunteer Week, April 6-12, USA Weekend and Points of Light are recongizing the 2013 Make A Difference Day honorees, who will be celebrated in Washington, D.C., on April 10. Here we tell the story of two West Virginia high school clubs looking out for families who don’t have the clothes and food they need.

High school students in Weirton, W.Va., sort cans of donated food on Make A Difference Day.

In Weirton, W.Va., where the steel mill used to employ 14,000 but now has only about 1,000 workers, kids go to school in the cold with no socks. They wear clothes that haven’t been washed in weeks to save utility costs. The only meal they eat all day is the free lunch at school.

It isn’t just a few households down on their luck, either. It is whole neighborhoods: At the largest elementary school, Weirton Heights, almost half of the students live at or below the poverty line. At the city’s two food pantries, the

Salvation Army

and the

Community Bread Basket

, the shelves were bare a few short weeks before Thanksgiving last year, while a record 300 families were signed up for holiday baskets. “At the Salvation Army, they had maybe two stacks of green beans. That was it,” says Alisandra Welch, the high school senior who was one of the chief organizers of Weirton’s first Make A Difference Day campaign, called Soup, Socks and Smiles: Warm Your Heart, Warm Your Sole. About 500 volunteers helped in the effort, which included collecting 5,000 pounds of food for the pantries; donating more than 300 pairs of kids’ socks, backpacks and other clothing to

Weirton Heights Elementary School

; and helping a family whose house exploded in a natural-gas accident, killing their teenage daughter. The project began as the effort of Interact Club members at the city’s rival high schools,

Weir High

and

Weirton Madonna

. But it caught on community-wide, Welch says, after people learned the depths of hardship many families faced. “We tied shopping bags to doors in every neighborhood and thought, ‘Maybe some people will put in a can or two,’” Welch says. “Well, we would go to porches and find bags and bags of food.” Renee Howard, Weir High’s Interact Club adviser, says the project has given the community hope again, after the long years of sadness following the collapse of the former Weirton Steel Corp. “This is an ongoing thing,” Howard says. “Since that day, Make A Difference Day, we decided we were going to do as much as we can for the community, so we’ve done several different projects.”

Check out the other Make A Difference Day honorees at www.makeadifferenceday.com/winners.

No College Course Can Teach This

In honor of National Volunteer Week, April 6-12, USA Weekend and Points of Light are recongizing the 2013 Make A Difference Day honorees, who will be celebrated in Washington, D.C., on April 10. Here we tell the story of Arkansas college students uniting as volunteers for the community.

University of Arkansas Students help clean up on Make A Difference Day.

Holly Hilliard is about to graduate from the

University of Arkansas

with an industrial engineering degree and a commitment to volunteer service. Hilliard, 21, is the president of her school’s Volunteer Action Center, which works with more than 40 nonprofit organizations, schools and parks to develop area service projects. She has been involved with the group since she was a sophomore. “It’s been cool to see it evolve every year,” Hilliard says. But on the morning of Make A Difference Day, Oct. 26, as a crowd of volunteers was gathering, Hilliard was struck by the impact she and her classmates were making. “Everyone gets excited as they get together, and you can see all of the people starting to go out to different projects,” Hilliard says. “You don’t think about how many people volunteer until you see everyone together to celebrate the day.” Student Daniel Taliaferro McFarland, 21, helped coordinate the school’s efforts this time. “Make A Difference Day is an opportunity for students, faculty, staff and other various members of the community to come together and make a monumental impact on northwest Arkansas,” he says. “I can honestly say that it was an experience of a lifetime.” A total of 1,326 volunteers worked on projects that ranged from cleaning and stocking the campus food pantry to creating puppets for a local literacy program. Organizers estimated total economic impact at more than $100,000. “It was great to witness a bigger picture being painted of everyone working together,” says student Lyna Noi Ninkham, 21, who served as the donations coordinator. “Definitely a beautiful sight to see.” Each project was led by one of 40 student leaders, which Hilliard hopes has a lasting impact. “Instead of just one day of service, it prepares them with working with a nonprofit,” she says. “It gets that connection started in creating those lasting relationships between the volunteers and the agencies.” Hilliard won’t be on campus next year but still plans to be involved in Make A Difference Day. “I will look for it wherever I end up moving.”

Check out the other Make A Difference Day honorees at www.makeadifferenceday.com/winners.

Want to Know What Makes a City a Great Place to Live?

In honor of National Volunteer Week, April 6-12, USA Weekend and Points of Light are recongizing the 2013 Make A Difference Day honorees, who will be celebrated in Washington, D.C., on April 10. Here we tell the story of a Tennessee community that knows how to come together.

Cleveland, Tenn., residents participate in a bike race to benefit Habitat for Humanity.

Mayor Tom Rowland of

Cleveland, Tenn.

, is proud of his community and the way residents pull together. It was evident in the aftermath of a tornado in 2011, and it is evident every year on Make A Difference Day. “When there is a need, it is amazing how the people turn out,” Rowland says. At the 2013 event, on Oct. 26, 800 volunteers worked on dozens of activities ranging from a YMCA job fair that helped 64 people find employment, to an effort in which nearly 75

Lee University

students assembled backpacks for 10,000 children filled with snacks, toothpaste, shampoo and other basics. “Those went to three elementary schools where kids don’t eat too well when they go home on the weekend,” Rowland says. “They were filled with things that some people may not have and would be a luxury to them.” Another project was a charity walk that raised more than $15,000 to benefit about 200 children served by

Court Appointed Special Advocates

. “Our income from the walk has nearly doubled every year,” says CASA director Suzanne Wisdom. “All of the funds go to a program that recruits, screens and trains volunteers to represent abused and neglected children in the court system to make sure they have a voice, someone to speak on their behalf. We have more and more children every year needing an advocate.” Meanwhile, the

local Habitat for Humanity chapter

raised enough money to build two houses locally at $48,000 each. But the people of Cleveland didn’t just help their own. They also helped organizations far away. People For Care and Learning held a charity bike ride to raise money to build housing and install sewers system for a village in Cambodia, which is also the site of a new factory outpost of Cleveland’s Murmaid Mattress. “I am protective about my community,” Rowland says. “I want to encourage people to learn how to give back one day of the year on Make A Difference Day, and to make a difference throughout the year in as many different ways we can find. Look out your front door or your back door and you are going to find something you can do to help somebody.”

Check out the other Make A Difference Day honorees at www.makeadifferenceday.com/winners.

A Different Kind of College Party

In honor of National Volunteer Week, April 6-12, USA Weekend and Points of Light are recognizing the 2013 Make A Difference Day honorees, who will be celebrated in Washington, D.C., on April 10. Here we tell the story of college students who help the local community in numerous ways.

University of Akron students help clean the grounds of the Ronald McDonald house of Akron.

You might expect fraternity members to spend a Saturday morning tossing a ball, washing their cars or just hanging out. But on Make A Difference Day, Oct. 26, Jonathan Wickham, a human resources management major from Wooster, Ohio, and 40 of his Lambda Chi Alpha brothers spent time making blankets for the homeless and repairing toys for disabled kids.

“I never miss Make A Difference Day. In just a few hours, you can make a huge impact,” says Wickham, 21, one of 708

University of Akron

students and staffers from across the school who tackled 60 community projects. Few schools rival Akron in Make A Difference Day activity. In nine years, 5,800 volunteers have served 21,000 hours, says Alison Doehring, who volunteered each October as a student and now coordinates the day as assistant director of student life: “It’s our largest service initiative by far.” Students repaired rotting park benches, helped public housing residents clean their apartments, weatherproofed a home for veterans, worked on a

Habitat for Humanity

house, swept trails in

Cuyahoga Valley National Park

and organized a cereal shipment to a food bank. The city’s

Department of Neighborhood Assistance

worked with the university to identify seven pressing projects, from enlarging a community garden to dragging tires and shopping carts out of a creek. At

Ronald McDonald House of Akron

, a low-cost home away from home for families of

Akron Children’s Hospital

patients, 10 students did a thorough fall cleanup of the grounds, “supplying muscle we would have had to pay someone else for,” says Meri Skiera, the House’s volunteer coordinator. “Our regular volunteers can’t handle all that work. We save the important jobs for Make A Difference Day, because we can rely on these great University of Akron volunteers.”

Check out the other Make A Difference Day honorees at www.makeadifferenceday.com/winners.

Giving Kids With Disabilities a Safe Place to Play

In honor of National Volunteer Week, April 6-12, USA Weekend and Points of Light are recongizing the 2013 Make A Difference Day honorees, who will be celebrated in Washington, D.C., on April 10. Here we tell the story of an organization that refurbished a center that serves people with disabilities.

Volunteers work to spruce up the grounds of a center that serves people with disabilities in Washington, D.C.

Sometimes it’s not just about the work that gets done. It’s also about how you play.

Alison Vaux-Bjerke works at

Playworks

, in Washington D.C., the local chapter of a nonprofit organization that provides kids with opportunities for safe, meaningful play. That can be hard to come by in some urban areas, where schools can lack safe playgrounds and sometimes have to use neighboring civic recreation centers for recess.

That’s how Vaux-Bjerke became familiar with the D.C. Center for Therapeutic Recreation, which provides services for kids as well as seniors and people with special needs.  And she knew the place was looking a bit drab.

“We wanted to do something local to our D.C. community that really affected people of varying abilities,” Vaux-Bjerke says.

Playworks put out the call out for volunteers to come help give the center a facelift on Make A Difference Day, Oct. 26. More than 60 people gathered on the cold fall morning and set to work – refurbishing picnic tables, cleaning and organizing the library, working on landscaping, decorating recycling bins – and working side-by-side with many of the center’s developmentally disabled clients. “They talked about it for days after,” says Priscilla Jones, a recreation therapist at the center. “It was an awesome day. We don’t experience that too often.” Clients of the center frequently use (and always notice) the bright yellow picnic tables at the center, and seniors enjoy taking care of the plants and trees indoors. But the physical improvements to the center aren’t what left the most lasting impression on Jones. “I think what I took away from it was the teamwork with Playworks,” she says. “A lot of volunteers came out willing to do whatever it took to make the building better.”

Check out the other Make A Difference Day honorees at www.makeadifferenceday.com/winners.