Alan Crocker

When a small group of parents got together in Spring 2000 to create a children’s football club, little did they know how much they were tapping into the need of a small rural village and beyond. There were enough children to create one team of 7 year olds, now Derry Hill United Football Club has grown to support over 200 children age 6 to 16. Founder and Chair, Alan Crocker is the driving force behind the Club. His enthusiasm, hard work, and boundless energy ensure the Club has grown strong and now supports 14 squads to play some 250 matches in a season.

In addition, to his management role, Alan has a host of other jobs including webmaster, volunteer coordinator, press officer, fund-raiser and coach. In 2004, Alan was presented with the Football Association’s “National Charter Standard Coach of the Year Award” at an England World Cup match. “With all the hours I spend on Club management and development it was great to get acknowledgement for the bit I love, coaching the kids,” says Croker. He continues, “Sometimes it feels like we are running a small business. As the Club has grown we have had to put more infrastructures in place to keep thing running smoothly. Our volunteers include a small management team, qualified coaches, team secretaries, a Child Protection Officer, grounds men, social events helpers and a refreshments team.” Alan volunteers 20-30 hours per week for Derry Hill United Cub.

Gloria Cooke

Mary Baldauf

East New York Brooklyn is a low-income community where poverty, substance abuse, domestic violence and incarceration rates threaten the stability of families and compromises the development of children. Over 40% of East New York households earn a yearly income of less than fifteen thousand dollars a year. Over twenty-five thousand of the community’s residents live below the poverty line. There are eight foster care placements and thirty-seven reported cases of child abuse and neglect per one thousand residents.

In 2007, ENY partnered with Brookdale University Hospital to implement the Mentoring Thru Medicine program. BBBS-NYC was approached by Dr. Mary Baldauf, who is a critical care pediatrician at the hospital. Dr. Baldauf was alarmed at the number of unnecessary deaths she witnessed on a daily basis in the hospital’s emergency room. Moreover, she sought to find answers to help combat youthful gun possession and gang violence. In her efforts to find a solution to help reduce the local crime and injury rate, Dr. Baldauf discovered mentoring to be a proven method in the reduction of crime rates.

BBBS-ENY paired eighteen youths with eighteen of the hospital’s pediatric residents. Under the leadership of Dr. Baldauf, the collaboration between our two entities has been nothing short of a rousing success. She played a significant role in the execution of the curriculum. Additionally, Dr. Baldauf mentored the residents and youths alike. Moreover, she gave freely of herself on her off days. She spoke at BBBS-ENY Parent Summits and provided health workshops for our Mentoring Thru Medicine parents. Dr. Baldauf’s spirit is so infectious that other doctors have come aboard. Her energy and continued dedication to the community and its young people speaks volume.

Lubomira Cook

Lubomira Cook became a volunteer for the Senior Companion Program in 2004. She is currently assisting an 89 year old client who lives alone, has difficulty with numerous medical problems and was first referred to Senior Companions after a fall resulting in a three week hospitalization. She needed help with meal preparation, changing her bed linens, laundry, shopping, medication reminders and she also lacked the companionship of someone close to her own age.

Once, Ms. Cook noticed that her client was having difficulty breathing and alerted her client’s family who took her in for further evaluation with her physician resulting in better medical care for her. On another occasion she called the family to alert them to the fact that the client “just didn’t seem well”. The physician indicated that the client was experiencing problems with fluctuating blood pressure and changed her medications. Most recently the client began to experience problems with mood swings and forgetfulness. Again the physician was alerted and he diagnosed Alzheimer’s, placed her on medication for this and that has improved her functioning.

Ms. Cook volunteers 20 hours each week for the Senior Companion Program. She is an RSVP volunteer with the “Hello, How are you?” program, that regularly calls people with little outside contact. She volunteers for a local hospice program with her pet therapy dog. The two of them have logged over 800 hospice visits in the past two years and 300 nursing home visits in the past three years.

Diana Han Bowler

Diana Bowler started volunteering with the intent to be closer to her daughters as they were growing up. She started her involvement with National Charity League-Diablo Valley, part of a national organization aimed at to foster mother-daughter relationships in philanthropic organizations committed to community service, leadership development and cultural experiences. Through the last eight years, Diana and her daughters Melissa and Danielle have worked for the town of Danville at the Halloween carnival, watered flowers at the local nursing home, reconstructed sidewalks for Habitat for Humanity and sorted food for the local Food Bank. They also prepared meals at their local Fishes & Loaves and helped run events to raise money for Children’s Hospital and local schools.

By working side by side at various functions, they have developed an appreciation for each other’s strengths. They share memories of meeting a musician while delivering for Meals on Wheels who gave them a special piccolo concert, making quilts for premature babies for the local children’s hospital, sewing Christmas stockings to be stuffed with toiletries for the local homeless shelters, and shopping for Adopt-A-Families. Her daughters have learned to run their own monthly meetings, organizing their own events. Diana credits NCL in helping her raise her children to learn about themselves, giving them tools to be successful, and becoming caring, supportive people in their communities. Diana found her experience with NCL so rewarding that she began to volunteer her time with various ballet boards in her area. She helped them with expansion, business growth plans and budgeting.

Woody Austin

Woody has been a volunteer at CONTACT for the past 27 years filling in many overnight and empty day shifts. In December alone, Woody met his call center commitment and filled in six additional shifts in four days, including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Woody should understand people, for he has spent the past 16 years working at Frederick Douglass Elementary School in Southeast Dallas working with children from pre-kindergarten to 8th grade. Currently he works with pre-kindergarten and kindergarten aged children. This second career came after a first career in management for two different utility companies.

Woody remembers one Friday night, when a teenage boy called because he was depressed and was considering running away from home. He was even contemplating suicide. The boy was living with one parent and his sister, and the sister was “miss perfect,” who received continual praise for her grades and activities. The other parent had picked up the sister and the boy was left at home. The boy had also just started at a new school because he had been so ostracized at his previous school that the parents and counselor thought a new school would provide a fresh start. However, he had not made many friends in his new school yet. Throughout the call, Woody engaged the boy in talking about person who had demonstrated concern for him in the past. By talking about these persons, Woody was able to help the boy identify positive reasons to live. As a result, the caller planned alternatives that would yield support systems for him and help him grow.

“Spending the time on the phones listening and reflecting with callers is just as valuable as any monetary donation we can make,” says Woody, “In addition, after each shift there is a sense of mission accomplished.”

Rebecca Acri

Rebecca “Becca” Acri’s senior high school service project began with her twin cousins’ 98-day stay in The Western Pennsylvania Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). During the summer of 2007, Becca’s fourth year as a junior volunteer at West Penn, she served in the NICU, where she discovered that many of the 500 “preemies” cared for each year were discharged to homes where cute new outfits were not in the budget.

Becca determined that, to commemorate her cousins’ life-saving time in the NICU, she would collect 98 new outfits to donate to needy families. In addition to volunteering at West Penn (almost 60 hours in 2007 and a cumulative total of almost 400 hours), Becca held a “baby shower” and clothing drive. On October 22, 2007, Becca brought to the NICU several huge storage containers containing more than 400 tiny outfits, separated by gender and each labeled with a tag describing her donation. She even brought the inspiration for her project—her twin cousins—to celebrate their 3rd birthdays with their NICU “family.”

Scott Breslow

Scott Breslow is a young man dedicated to serving others and making a positive impact in the lives of those he comes in contact with.

Scott is a 16 year-old high school student who has worked as a non-paid volunteer at the YWCA’s “Special Swim” program in Ridgewood NJ, serving youth and adults with special needs. He has served in this capacity for the past 5 years and his volunteer service and is an ongoing commitment.

Scott is not just a “swimming teacher”; his service meets a true community need. Often those with special needs, most especially young children, are isolated from the community and this isolation negatively impacts their growth and development. Scott’s intelligence, warmth and good humor allow him to connect with and reach the children at their level; he is a true “buddy” to his students. In this way he can teach them not only how to swim, but how to exercise their minds and their muscles, and most importantly, how to interact and socialize with others.

The impact from these activities is very obvious. The children have become more engaged with their instructors and peers across settings. This facilitates their learning in the classroom as well as their interactions in the community. Some of children who started out needing one-on-one assistance grew under his guidance to become independent swimmers.

Scott has also taken his involvement in these activities and used it to educate the larger community about those with special needs and how best to work, serve, and interact with them, by incorporating their daily lives into his own when possible. He will often take time both before and after the program to spend time with his students and others in the program, share a snack with them and to talk with the teens about contemporary music and movies, treating them as equal peers. His ongoing dedication to the education and inclusion of this population has served as an example and has resulted in other young people joining the Special Swim program as volunteers.

Scott’s work and dedication to these children make him a true gem to the community; he enables his students to reach their potential and sets the example of how we should all conduct ourselves towards our fellow “Man” in this world. Scott has impacted not only the children he teachers but their families also. He is a shining example of a servant leader and a great role model for other youth.

Alex Kehm

Alex Kehm has a special community service activity. He created the Fenton Passback, an organization committed to providing underprivileged children locally and world-wide with soccer equipment.

Alex partnered with the U. S. Soccer Foundation Passback program in an effort to solicit donations in the St. Louis area. He came up the idea of founding Fenton Passback while watching the Fox Soccer channel one night and saw an advertisement for the grassroots organization of the U.S. Soccer Foundation Passback.

The Passback program is one of the cornerstones of the U. S. Soccer Foundation. Alex knew that he had used cleats, uniforms, and balls just sitting in his closet. He felt this would be a great way to help others.

He knew it would be a great idea to “recycle” his items instead of throwing them away. Then he took it a step further because he donated them to individuals who really need them. Alex then contacted the Passback organization and discovered there was not any local chapter established in the Fenton area. This motivated him to found the Fenton Passback.

The Passback program is joint effort between the U. S. Soccer Foundation, Eurosport and Major League Soccer to help meet the soccer uniform and equipment needs of all communities, regardless of income, gender, or location. The Fenton Passback chapter collected enough soccer gear to impact many kids locally and world-wide. They collected over 200 pieces of soccer gear.

By founding the Fenton Passback it provided a unique opportunity for Alex and others to reach out to their community. Alex was able to get others involved in the effort to help underprivileged kids by collecting new and gently used soccer equipment, and distributing gear to kids who may otherwise be unable to play the wonderful sport.

Some of the individuals he was able to get involved were Principals, teachers, friends, soccer coaches, parents, siblings, viola instructor, community leaders, local business and the newspapers. He began working on the program in 2007 and does not receive any money for founding the program.

Meredith Boyd

A mentor’s purpose is not to create individuals in her own image, but to develop young women who can create their own image.

Meredith Boyd was that gangly girl you remember from school. In her early teens she was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, which explained all of the pain she had been suffering. From these humble beginnings came the success story of today.

During working hours you will find her at William Mills Agency as a Group Director. Her makeup line does well and of course there is the occasional modeling stint on the runway and print media. A frequent guest columnist for Pageantry Magazine sharing her tips for communications, Meredith is also called upon to share much of her hair and makeup artistry.

Believe it or not she does have spare time so that she can give back much of what she has received in support and encouragement to others in need.

This national spokesperson for the Arthritis Foundation goes above and beyond when you find her coaching at the Special Olympics or spreading cheer at the Ronald McDonald House. This veteran of many surgeries can also be found at hospital holding a hand, flashing a smile, consoling a family member, bringing something to eat for those too stressed out to leave a bedside.

Other times she is there for the little girl with the eating disorder, bad self-image, and others in need. She tells everyone, “Be your best self. Create your own image, the others are taken. It takes hard work, persistence and dedication to achieve your goals, but most of all it takes support. I am just so happy to be able to help someone find their way to their dreams.”

She has helped many become active voices locally through the national arena, volunteering and taking leadership positions within and out of their community.