Mandy Ashley Chung

In 2007 Mandy Ashley Chung felt the need to reach out to the elderly in her community and bring those living in full-time homes more joy on a daily basis. As a minor it wasn’t as easy as just walking into the home to volunteer, but her persistence and her idea of sharing her love of music with the residents convinced the administration to allow her in the company of her parents. She invited a friend to join her and started a classical music group playing their violins, piano, flute and cello called “Strings of Love”.

For the past four years Ashley has continued her work at Heartland Healthcare System in Austin, Texas. On a monthly basis, Ashley plans and leads a group to play live music, sing and talk with the residents. Over time she has started to cater her music more towards oldies that the residents are familiar and get excited about. She also brings music shakers to pass around and allow the residents to take part in the performance. In 2011 Ashley extended her efforts to include the Arden Courts healthcare system. The population at Arden Courts is more Alzheimer-based.

Ashley also reaches out to youth in her community at the Settlement Home of Central Texas. In the summer of 2009, she taught violin lessons for a class of six adolescents at the home. She joined forces with a friend who played the cello and put together a finale concert that featured students who had gone through their lessons. Ashley and her friend raised more than $1,200 to pay for the rental fees of all the violins and cellos needed for the summer teaching program.

Ashley’s love of her community and music extends to the Settlement Home’s annual Thanksgiving dinner where she has played music for the last three years. She also gives her time at her local church where she joins her family to prepare, pack and deliver sandwiches to the needy in the community.

Ashley’s commitment to her community at such a young age is what makes her a Daily Point of Light.

Cathy Leichter

Cathy Leichter of Edmond, Okla. devotes her time to fundraising and marketing to assist various nonprofits raise awareness. These organizations don’t have the budget to hire a full-time person and rely heavily on Cathy’s voluntary contributions.

Cathy serves with Lyric Theater, the local hospice, The Tree Bank Foundation, Oklahoma City University (OCU) School of Music and School of Dance and Arts Management, Reconstruction of the Wiley Post Hanger, United Methodist Higher Education Foundation and youth organizations at Our Lord’s Community Church, Chapel Hill United Methodist Church and Church of the Servant, to name a few.

Cathy and her husband Kurt were the first couple to fully fund a Habitat for Humanity. She organized and produced the first Habit for Humanity fundraiser in conjunction with the Norick Art Center on the OCU campus. This fundraiser was the largest single artist one-day sale in the history of the art center.

She also organized the OCU Student Senate first fully-funded Habitat home which involved every student organization on campus. It continues to work on numerous homes each year.

Cathy and Kurt also funded the Leichter Reunion Center OCU, Leichter Listening Library and several practice rooms in the Bass School of Music and the Mercy Health Center Conference Center.

Through the Leichter Scholarship Board, Cathy and Kurt award numerous scholarships to OCU each year.

Her devotion to service in a broad range of areas in her community is what makes Cathy a Daily Point of Light.

Stephen Denton Jr.

Jill Lassiter

Dr. Jill Lassiter is an assistant professor of health/exercise science at Bridgewater College in Virginia. During the past two school years, her personal and community health class partnered with Our Community Place (OCP) to design, raise money, and build exercise equipment on their property. Students spent time assessing the needs of OCP, raised more than $2,000, made detailed plans for the equipment and spent four days building with the help of professionals, OCP staff and community members. Current students will work to develop and implement fitness activities and educational sessions to at OCP.

The equipment provides an opportunity for an underserved population in Virginia to have access to fitness equipment and instruction. It gives the students an opportunity to learn more about their community and use their health and exercise expertise to better their neighborhood. Dr. Lassiter not only brought equipment and instruction to her community – but she engaged four different semesters worth of students, setting up approximately 300 students to make service a larger part of their lives. This is why Dr. Lassiter is a Daily Point of Light.

Sandra Hoover

Altrusa International of Muncie, Ind. inspires the less fortunate and those affected by the rough economic strife through books and the gift of reading. Before Altrusa many agencies in the community had small libraries or none at all. Muncie was once a community of strong automotive influence, but now suffers greatly from unemployment. Altrusa collects reading materials to help spawn a more literate community in hopes of turning things around and introducing new possibilities.

Altrusa made this project come to life with no money, and relied on club donations from personal libraries. Altrusa collected, donated, sorted and distributed books to local agencies who wanted community libraries.

On Make A Difference Day, October 22, 2011, 75 members collected 442 books which were divided and donated to the county jail, the Boys and Girls Club, the ROY C BULEY Center, the Youth Opportunity Center and the Forest Park Senior Citizens Center in hopes of inspiring reading among all groups. It is because of these efforts, and the organization’s ongoing joy of giving the gift of literacy that Altrusa is a Daily Point of Light.

Lindy Pape

Lindy Pape of Jacksonville, N.C. devotes a large chunk of her time to mentoring military families with MCAS New River LINKS. She leads a volunteer team of approximately 20-30 people who supported more than 2,000 military families in 2011. The military lifestyle is close to her heart, as a military wife and sister of a Marine, she reaches out to help community members navigate their sometimes challenging lifestyles, while also dealing with her own deployments.

Lindy also volunteers with her husband’s squadron as a family readiness assistant, at her church, and with various local agencies doing free photography. She is a 25-year-old mother of three and cancer survivor who makes giving to others a priority in her busy life. She has volunteered more than 1,000 hours in the last two years to LINKS. This is why Lindy is a Daily Point of Light.

Joshua Pathrose

At only 13-years-old, Joshua Pathrose of Mason, Ohio has made an incredible impact through his volunteer work. His presence brings joy and energy to the residents of Cedar Village, a not-for-profit retirement community for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients. Joshua has spent more than 170 hours helping residents with daily physical therapy, exercise, serving lunches and assisting nurses by cleaning beds and much more. He also uses his gift of music to provide entertainment for the residents by playing his guitar. Overall, it is his company that shows the residents they are not forgotten.

Joshua has also raised more than $1,000 for “Save the Children of Japan” through the American Red Cross. By doing so he has been able to help provide hundreds of children in Japan with essential needs such as food, water, clothing, and medicine. His work with the American Red Cross continued with the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Joshua setup a music booth at his local grocery store and raised more than $800. He uses his music booth to raise money for famine-stricken countries in Africa on a regular basis.

Not only is Joshua raising funds for international organizations, but he is also committing his efforts to local organizations. He raised almost $600 for Cincinnati Children’s Hospital as well as for Shriner’s Burns Hospital for Children, both local and national-based organizations. Through these programs, he is able to help countless children. He also volunteers for the Feed the Need Program at The Drop Inn Center in Cincinnati. The Drop Inn Center provides basic human services to people experiencing homelessness.

Joshua’s service at such a young age surpasses what most will do in a lifetime. This is why Joshua is a Daily Point of Light.

Alex Ball

Since 2005, Alex Ball has led service trips to Peru and Costa Rica, promoting service and youth engagement. He has worked with local communities and regional governments to improve rural sanitation and build infrastructure for sustainable economic development.

In 2009, Alex developed and implemented a project that brought electricity to the impoverished village of Socma, Peru. While working in these communities, Alex realized how many girls failed to attend secondary school because it was too far to walk. To ratify this problem, Alex founded the Sacred Valley Project to increase access to education for these girls. The Sacred Valley Project offers them a chance to attend high school by providing a safe, supportive place for them to live as they attend school.

The Sacred Valley Project has already given a real educational opportunity to twelve girls of the most impoverished part of Peru. These girls would have ended their education in the sixth grade and many would become pregnant by the time they were eighteen. Alex’s plan is to continue to grow and replicate the project, providing the opportunity for thousands of girls to become indigenous leaders who generate positive growth and economic development for their families and communities. The project has already provided hundreds of volunteer opportunities to students and adults around the globe.

Without a secondary education, the girls of the Sacred Valley are unable to overcome the cycle of intergenerational poverty. Without intellectual capital, these girls are unable to develop the skills necessary to become confident, empowered women capable of leading their communities. Having access to the right resources and a supportive environment in which to pursue their studies will have a positive impact on the girls of the Sacred Valley, as well as on the communities they come from. This is what makes Alex a Daily Point of Light.

Nicolina Kelly

Four years ago, when Nicolina Kelly’s teenage son returned home to Rhode Island from a humanitarian trip to the Dominican Republic organized by his math teacher, she noticed an extraordinary change in him. An athlete who was focused solely on sports came home with a newfound sense of community and a contagious enthusiasm to help others. Kelly couldn’t help but be moved by her son’s experience and she soon partnered with that math teacher to make humanitarian trips for teenagers a formal program.

With Nicolina’s spirit, drive, and outstanding organizational abilities, the first humanitarian trip with only four students was prototyped to form a private, nonprofit organization called Infinity Volunteers which involves high school students in humanitarian projects locally, in the United States, and in underdeveloped countries. Although she works full-time as a computer scientist in the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division, Nicolina still finds the time to help the students with their fund-raising efforts to pay for their trips and supplies all year long.

Their 2012 trip is to Guatemala where they will assemble a rainwater reserve system for an extremely impoverished community with no clean water source. The 2011 trip was to the small town of Abeka, Ghana where they assisted the Profesa School, a secretarial school for women. In the first year of the formalized program, the Infinity Volunteers traveled to New Orleans, where in some neighborhoods, post-Katrina conditions remained deplorable. Their mission was to help a woman who was living in a dilapidated home that needed many repairs. In addition to the annual trips to aide people in need, the Infinity Volunteers are organizing regular fundraising activities to support those trips and are contributing on a local level.

“Teenagers get a bad reputation but I’ve experienced the opposite. The kids in this program will continue to do this for the rest of their lives. Infinity Volunteers has some former volunteers who want to set up a chapter of Infinity Volunteers in their college. The volunteers benefit as much as the recipients. They come back much more rich in experience both emotionally and culturally.”

This is what makes Nicolina a Daily Point of Light.

EOLC Volunteer Program

End-of-Life Consultation (EOLC) volunteers work to create an atmosphere free from judgment where everyone can talk about, and come to terms with, the difficult issues surrounding death and dying.

Each year, the committed EOLC volunteers advise thousands of clients in their search for a peaceful, humane death. Throughout the nation, individuals are empowered by this information and support and EOLC volunteers have helped many people understand they don’t need to reach for violent means to end their lives if suffering becomes unbearable.

EOLC volunteers are trained to work directly with individual clients who live within their communities and help them effectively navigate the healthcare system, gain access to effective palliative and hospice care, complete advance medical directives, and stay in charge of their own dying.

Unlike many end-of-life organizations, EOLC is not affiliated with any religion, nor does it promote one ethical or belief system but rather honor all people as individuals, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, race or any other category.

The EOLC volunteers provide people with hope at one of the most vulnerable times of their lives. They stand ready to help all terminally ill and mentally competent patients understand their options at life’s end, how to access comfort care and facilitate a peaceful death. This is what makes the members of the EOLC Volunteer Program Daily Points of Light.