Benjamin Statham

Ben Statham is President of the Friends of the Alpharetta Library, a nonprofit volunteer organization, who has been volunteering with the Atlanta-Fulton Library System for more than 20 years.

Many years ago, an annual book sale was organized by the Friends to raise money for the Alpharetta Library. The sheer volume of the books donated and the extreme popularity of the sales caused it to burgeon into a monthly event. These monthly book sales have now occurred for about fifteen years, with Ben at its helm. Ben, strictly as a volunteer, has created a hard working team of about thirty other dedicated volunteers who work throughout the month to collect, categorize, stock shelves, price books, research books on the internet, and then work at the Saturday sales. The volunteers include all ages of individuals from high school students to two 80+ year old women. Many of the volunteers have been working at the sales since the sales first started.

Ben has been in charge of the logistics of the sales since their inception, a job that includes collecting book donations from various sources (including a recycling center that currently yields an entire pickup truck load of books every single day), sorting countless boxes of books by genre, moving those boxes to a storage facility, and working the monthly sales which includes set up during the week before the sales and clean up after the sales. Each sale day is a grueling 12 hour day which he actually finds “relaxing.” He tirelessly volunteers an average of 140 to 150 hours per month.

When elderly individuals want to donate books but do not have transportation to bring them to the donation sites, Ben picks up the books at their homes. Ben receives great joy when he is able to place a book in someone’s hands that will enable them to broaden their own horizons. The Friends have set up a book cart at the local City Hall and he frequently visits a large grocery store that employs many international people and he joyfully gives them books to help them learn English. Also, a book cart with books for sale is continually at the library so patrons throughout the month have an opportunity to purchase books.

The proceeds from the books sales are used to supplement the budget of the Alpharetta Library in the form of books, videos, magazines, tapes, author’s programs, children’s summer programs and staff appreciation tokens. Several thousand dollars are donated yearly to supply these much needed supplies. Any of the circulating items purchased by the Friends for the Alpharetta Library are accessible upon request throughout any of the thirty-four branches of the Library System. Along with the many items purchased, the Friends yearly give three scholarships to graduating high school seniors. They also participate in the Books for Soldiers program where several thousand paperbacks are mailed to our servicemen and women in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The work that Ben does with the book sales and the many directions in which he has extended that work provide important public services to the community; they enable books to be recycled and re-loved, they promote literacy and goodwill among all age groups and nationalities, and they set an example for the community in the importance of volunteering and how volunteer work can impact a community. Ben does all of this with a joyful heart. He is an unselfish, dedicated volunteer who, through his tireless efforts, is making a difference in many people’s lives. Besides the library work and his full-time job, he devotes many hours per year to environmental issues, particularly water quality issues.

He was awarded the President’s Call to Service Award in 2005 for donating over 4,000 hours of volunteer work for the library. He never expects more from others than he is willing to give. He would be the first to say that volunteering does more for him than he does for it! He does not volunteer for personal gain. He does not volunteer for monetary reasons. Ben volunteers because he wants to make a difference in people’s lives. He is truly an example of an unselfish, compassionate and dedicated man who IS making a difference in the lives of many people.

Phillip Hubbs

Attempts to address the illegal drug problem in the United States range from stricter laws to education programs. In addition, while harsh penalties may be a deterrent for some, the truth is it’s often too late for many who travel down that dark road.

It is believed that through awareness, the use of illegal drugs will diminish. Warning kids early remains our best option at long-term success. The Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program was introduced 22 years ago to educate students at the elementary school level to the dangers of illegal drug use. Police officers teach the program because they possess the knowledge, experience and credibility in this area.

Due to a number of factors, including budget cuts, D.A.R.E. nearly has been eliminated from most school programs within San Diego County at the middle and high school levels. To fill the vital need of drug prevention education, the non-profit education organization Proactive Network Against Substance Abuse (PRONASA) was founded and established by Philip D Hubbs, an officer with the San Diego Police Department.

Hubbs is motivated by having witnessed up close while working various stints in vice and narcotics the ugliness of wasted lives and the residual devastation upon society. He used his knowledge and experience to steer his two teen-age daughters clear of this trap and aim to help other parent do the same with their children through his programs.

The mission of PRONASA is to provide organized drug education at t he middle and high school levels to teach awareness to adult leaders, and to assist in finding help for those afflicted.

There are four steps to the presentation. First, it identifies the illegal drugs that are available in our community. Second, it explains the delivery system for each drug and its associated paraphernalia. Third, it educates on the objective symptomatology and shows shocking examples of the extreme harm illegal drugs cause. Finally, it identifies and provides community resources that are available to assist families dealing with a drug user.

Hubbs founded PRONSAS [501 (c) (3) Non-profit Educational organization] three years ago. He is not provided with a salary and volunteers 15 to 20 hours a week of his personal time meeting with organizations, attending committee/committee/community/school meetings and making presentations throughout San Diego County. He started the organization with his personal assets and equipment before seeking funding through grant and donations.

One of the special features of Hubbs’ programs is his partnership with local law enforcement agencies, including the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration. He also networks with various intervention, prevention and education organizations throughout San Diego County. Because of his efforts and achievements, these organizations have nominated Hubbs for several community awards, including the Channel 10 Leadership Award. He was the recipient of the prestigious Law Enforcement DEA Enrique “Kiki” Camerena Award and the California Lieutenant governor’s Cruz M Bustamante Commendation during the Red Ribbon celebration on October 19, 2005. The Red Ribbon Campaign symbolized the nation’s support for effort to reduce demand for drugs through prevention and education programs.

On Nov. 23, 2005, Hubbs received a certificate of recognition for his community service from Soroptimist International of La Mesa. He also was recognized by California Assemblyman Jay LaSuer and was presented with an award for his education programs.

Hubbs’ vision is to generate sufficient funding for his organization to provide schools with cash incentives to subscribe to his programs. The incentive for school principals to host the community and student presentations would be twofold. In addition to valuable substance abuse education an awareness they already enjoy, they also would receive money to enhance school projects or purchase needed equipment.

Kate Margolis

Kate Margolis has dedicated the past three years to children, teens, and families impacted by domestic violence and dating abuse through her volunteer work at Jersey Battered Women’s Service (JBWS). It was in 2002, when Kate first completed the JBWS 40-hour domestic violence training. Like most JBWS volunteers, she began her volunteer work in the Helpline program. However, what is unique about Kate is her desire to keep adding more challenges to her volunteer experience. In just three years at JBWS, she is now a help line volunteer, a Crisis Response Team volunteer, a Dating Abuse Prevention Program (DAPP) school educator and manages additional volunteer projects as the need arises.

It is fair to say that Kate is involved in every area of JBWS’ mission, which is “the prevention of domestic violence through the protection and empowerment of the victim, the rehabilitation of family members, and the advocacy of social reform to help these families and the education of the public about domestic violence and its consequences”. Kate’s on-going involvement in various programs at JBWS demonstrates her strong commitment to this mission statement.

Kate Margolis is a dedicated helpline worker, she consistently reports for her help line shift every Monday morning from 9 – 1 pm. She provides help line services including information, crisis intervention, and referrals. She responds to crisis situations in a professional manner and is skilled in the area of providing empathy and emotional support to helpline callers. When the Helpline is quiet, Kate is responsible for helping the staff counselors to meet the needs of the women and children who live in the shelter. When asked to describe Kate, the counselors say she is “a reliable volunteer whom often goes above and beyond what is expected.” She is willing to take on any tasks ranging from providing childcare for children in shelter, setting up shelter rooms, to completing administrative assignments. She willingly provides transportation and advocacy during her scheduled volunteer shift as well as on additional days during the week when needed.

Kate is a CRT member for Chatham (Township) since 2004. Crisis Response Teams consists of a group of volunteers who provide information and emotional assistance for victims following a domestic violence police call. As a CRT volunteer, Kate is called to meet a victim of domestic violence at the police department to provide emotional support, information on the dynamics of domestic violence and the laws available to protect victims, social services referrals, access to shelter, and help with developing a safety plan. As a member of a CRT, Kate received additional training and makes a commitment to be on-call for 12-hour a day, seven days a week.

This school year 2005/06, Kate began as a DAPP educator substitute. The DAPP program is and educational preventative program that reaches middle school, high school and college students throughout Morris County. As a DAPP educator substitute, Kate provides coverage for scheduled DAPP engagements that the DAPP educator could not attend due to an illness, or to fulfill the demand for the programs. She trained for one and half years to be able to present programs to students in middle schools, high schools, colleges. She read many books on the topic of dating violence, viewed educational videos on dating violence, observed other staff doing the presentations, co-facilitated DAPP engagements, and met periodically for training and supervision with the coordinator of the dating abuse prevention program. Kate’s efforts are endless as she attends the DAPP monthly staff meetings. Additionally, in 2004, Kate mentored the Key Club at Chatham High School in a project where they put together more than 300 goodie bags for the JBWS Safe Date Challenge walk/run.

For one full year, Kate took on the responsibility as monitoring the JBWS donation line. She picked up voicemail messages on the donation line, returned phone calls, and determined how the donation might best be used. Kate is highly knowledgeable in the area of community resources.

Jami Harper

For ten years, Jami has actively protected the world’s water supply, especially Nebraska’s underground aquifer. Following the discovery of industrial solvents in her neighbors’ wells in 2003, Jami organized a program to teach water protection to prevent similar tragedies from happening. To make learning fun, Jami created H2Owood Squares, an educational version of Hollywood Squares. In Jami’s version, the questions are related to water protection.

She compiled her questions from publications s and websites, then built a life-size game structure, reserved space at the 2004 Children’s Groundwater Festival, recruited 34 volunteers from Hall County’s seven high schools, arranged for a National Earth Force Youth Advisory Board member to serve as game show host, and presented workshops to several hundred fourth and fifth graders, parents, and teachers from across the state. Jami also designed a booth to teach water principles to nearly 1500 attendees. Both activities were hits and organizers invited Jami back in 2005.

To reach more people, Jami designed and runs the website, “Water Wizard,” where visitors answer a “Question of the Day” about water protection. The questions and game structure plans are available on request. In 2005, Jami enhanced H2Owood Squares by decorating the classroom in a Hollywood theme, including a “Hometown Celebrity Walk of Fame.” To assist with the workshops, she recruited local high school celebrities including 2005 Miss Nebraska Teen USA. H2Owood Squares 2005 was featured on the NTV evening news. Jami also made a flyer featuring colored photographs of the steps her project entailed. She distributed the flyer to youth and adults from across the country and as far away as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. She also discussed her project with Gen. Colin Powell in May.

To further protect the environment, Jami founded Operation Clear Air to curb teen smoking and institute a smoke-free environment.

Reba Sorrells

In 1980, Reba Sorrells and her late husband, Cleo, sought a volunteer organization to help them fulfill a simple goal: spread the Gospel to detached communities. Their church recommended Word Bible School, a correspondence Bible study course aimed at third-world and impoverished communities. Essentially WBS Teachers, like Reba, guide students through a five chapter Bible study program. As a retired teacher/principal, the educational component of WBS appealed to Reba. “This program improves literacy and teaches the Bible, truly worthy causes.” To date, Reba has taught over 2,500 WBS students, mostly children, in the U.S., the U.K., Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria and the Philippines, to name a few. She also recruits and mentors new teachers for WBS.

“Many students are third-world villagers, so course completion is difficult for them. Receiving completed lessons, correcting them, and returning them takes about five months. In that time, villagers frequently move, or worse pass away. My promise is to correct papers and mail certificates of completion within five days. In their lives, days make a difference.” For 26 years, Reba has kept her commitment by dedicating 20 volunteer hours each week.

To her students, Reba is both teacher and pen-pal. “Children ask for my picture. I guess there’s a shortage of garden scarecrows out there. I don’t send photos, but with each lesson I send encouraging notes or various pamphlets I collect from my library and church.” If you ask Reba how much material she donates yearly, she modestly replies: “Whatever it takes for each child to receive a treat with every lesson. I send books, commentaries, pamphlets, and, of course, Bibles.” In reality, Reba’s donations of reading materials are vast. One community in Nigeria actually turned her donations into the Ebonyi School of Preaching.

Her one regret is not saving the countless letters from her students. “My room at the living facility is limited, so I don’t keep letters. I’m inspired to watch my students’ reading/writing skills improve with each letter they send me. For many, English is a second language and education isn’t a priority. These lessons help.” More than anything else, her students ask her to visit. Her reply: “Lead a good life, and I’ll meet you in heaven.”

Reba is not paid for her time and refuses to boast about her service. “I can’t claim 26 years. We had a car wreck that took my husband’s life. I didn’t return to WBS until I could walk again. You should subtract those months.” In addition to 26 years as a WBS Teacher, in 1993 Johnson St. Church of Christ presented her with a plaque recognizing 50+ years as a Bible Class Teacher. Reba and her late husband, Cleo, received the 2006 Texas Lonestar Lifetime Achievement Award from Governor Perry for their life of service.

The Volunteer Way, Inc.

The Volunteer Way, Inc. (TVW) is exactly what America is all about; a group of dedicated humanitarians volunteering to help those that are less fortunate in their communities. Started in 1997, TVW are people helping people the volunteer way. TVW’s warehouse distributed 5,000,000 pounds of food free of any cost in the year 2005 to food pantries, food banks, women’s shelter, homeless shelter, soup kitchens, Hospice, Teen Challenge, Down’s syndrome residential program and low-income residents. TVW assists approximately 15,000 nutritionally challenged families each month. TVW promote volunteerism throughout Florida.

The warehouse also donates new clothing, shoes, toiletries, diapers, depends, personal items, toys and much more. The Volunteer Way’s goal is to meet the needs of people caught in poverty and to help lift them out of poverty and get them back in the main stream of society with dignity and hope. We believe that all people should strive to be the most they can be and we try to give them that hand up not that hand out. We have found that if we give people a hand out, it only make them dependent on us to help them the rest of their lives. With a hand up we teach them to take pride in themselves and work and support themselves and their families. For those that can not help themselves because of handicap or because their age, we believe they should have the opportunity to live with dignity and respect and to have the most basic things of life.

TVW’s Brown Bag program delivers 40-60 pounds of food to low-income homebound elderly every third week of each month which is when our seniors run out of money to buy food. While delivering this food, we have found that many of our seniors that are disabled, they can not clean their homes. We usually send out a cleaning crew once a month to clean their homes. We also visit with our senior participants because they tend to isolate and feel lonely.

The Street Gang program and Our Little Angel program are examples of other successful programs. The Street Gang program partners with the local Sheriff’s office by donating bags of non-perishable food for the deputies to carry in their patrol cars. When the deputies come across a homeless person or other low-income people the deputy give them a bag of food and personal items. With the Our Little Angel Program, providers of mentally challenged people bring their clients to our location to learn life skills. We have them make boxes of food for the nutritionally challenged, learn CPR, learn to clean and much more.

Loyce Logan

Grandma Loyce Logan has been a volunteer through the County of Sacramento’s Foster Grandparent Program since 1998. For the past 8 years she has been on the Cookie Brigade baking cookies and all sorts of sweets for the thousands of families of children receiving treatment at the Ronald McDonald House in Sacramento, CA.

After the house was built in 1998 Grandma Loyce and another founding volunteer began the Cookie Brigade to develop a means to engage the children and families that come though the House. Many of the families travel to Sacramento from other parts of the country and need a great deal of support navigating their way around this strange new world of hospitals and treatment centers and a new town while being under a much distress from their child’s illness. Loyce helps bring together people from diverse backgrounds and share common experiences. She is able to help ease the stress of hospitalization and provide a shoulder to cry on when needed. The impact she has is always a personal one. Loyce helps families through very tough times. The welcome aroma of cookies helps bring the families together to share and relax after a long day of treatments for their little ones. The siblings of the children receive attention that is badly needed at a time when they are feeling left out. It is such a win-win situation for everyone involved. Loyce is very attentive to all the needs of the families and it always is a pleasure for her to serve the needs of the children and their families.

Grandma Loyce has always loved children, while raising her family she worked in preschools and at the daycare at her church. She was also a Foster Parent for youth whom she brought into her home to nurture and love after her own children left the nest.

Grandma Loyce has registered over 8,000 hours of service for the Foster Grandparent Program and Ronald McDonald House in her 8 years. She has also baked hundreds of thousands of cookies and sweets for the kids and families that Ronald McDonald serves. Grandma Loyce received the Presidents Lifetime Achievement Award for volunteering over 4,000 hours in a lifetime. Even though she registered many hours and received an award, Grandma’s commitment hasn’t waned one bit and she still can be found at the end of a spatula at Ronald McDonald House.

Angela Ippolito

Angela Ippolito is an 80 year old marvel. Angie, a naturalized U.S. citizen, came to this country as a young adult. She worked full-time in a high school cafeteria until the age of 72, but after three months of retirement decided that she wanted more.

She has volunteered since 1998 at ScholarShop, the funding arm of The Scholarship Foundation of St. Louis. She loves the idea of helping young people be able to afford to continue their college education through no-interest loans from the Foundation. This past year Angie has contributed 780 hours of her time sorting and hanging donated upscale clothing for resale at ScholarShop. When asked what motivates her to continue at this “gold level” pace she replied, “I love the people, the place, and the work. It’s fun and I’m contributing to a great cause.” Angie has our vote for most dedicated volunteer of the year!Angela Ippolito is an 80 year old marvel. Angie, a naturalized U.S. citizen, came to this country as a young adult. She worked full-time in a high school cafeteria until the age of 72, but after three months of retirement decided that she wanted (and was capable of doing) more.

Anne Galvan

Students Working Against Tobacco

Students Working Against Tobacco (SWAT) is a national youth-led movement working to educate and unite students against the manipulation and targeting of youth by tobacco companies. In 2005, the Guyom SWAT team put in over 1,000 hours in service-learning projects. The Hats-Underwear -Gloves-Socks (H.U.G.S.) project collected 175 items for Hurricane Katrina and Rita victims and sent the items with anti-tobacco messages encouraging people to quit tobacco use and advising them not to start smoking.

Team members also translated and peer taught the Short Story of Smoking Calculator Curriculum, for the annual Great American Smoke Out. Guyom SWAT team members also recently attended National Youth Leadership Conference to share the SWAT story and learn more about service learning. These students are proud recipients of the President’s Volunteer Service Award.