THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA “BIG EVENT”
The Big Event is the University of Oklahoma’s official day of community service, as well as the largest student-run volunteer effort in the nation. Beginning on the Texas A&M campus in 1982, The Big Event has since spread to 72 other universities across the nation. What stands out about The Big Event, however, are the students, faculty and staff involved. On many of these campuses, no other event brings together people from so many different cultures, backgrounds, ethnicities, hometowns and majors to work together for one common goal: to make their community a better place in which to live.
This past year, The Big Event at OU alone sent more than 4,800 students into the Norman and Oklahoma City communities to paint, remove litter from roadways, plant fresh flowers and visit with senior citizens on Saturday, March 27. We sent our volunteers to schools, animal advocacy centers, city parks, veteran’s centers and social service agencies. We also sent over 1,000 volunteers to the Oklahoma City Zoo to help build a brand now playground, and we sent another 35 students to build Norman’s first off-leash dog park—a project that had been planned for over a year but had never begun because of the large number of people needed to build it. These volunteer centers and non-profit groups do so much for our community that we want to give back to them because of what they have done for us.
The sixth annual Big Event on April 2, 2005, will send an estimated one out of every four OU students into our community. Because of the tremendous response we have received from the people we serve and university officials, we have decided to focus more efforts of bringing together all The Big Events from across the country and expanding the event to more college campuses. We believe that The Big Event can do so much for the student community, as well as the college’s community, so we are eager to make it a more nationally recognized day of community service.
Seeing so many students give up a Saturday morning and seeing the looks on their faces when they see thousands of their fellow Sooners is a feeling to which few words do justice. Knowing that dozens of organizations eagerly anticipate the next year’s Big Event helps us realize that all of the work we do actually does make a difference. We take pride in this event because we know that it shows that the next generation is not apathetic and lazy. It shows that we care, that we have compassion and that we will not hesitate to get our hands a little dirty to help out someone in need.
JIM BRYANT
In the five years that Grandpa Jim has been a Foster Grandparent he has left a huge imprint on the School, teachers and especially the second and third grade students that he has assisted over his five years at Alyce Norman Elementary School, a Title I program in West Sacramento, California.
This school has a large immigrate population that has students that speak English as a second language (ESL). This is where Grandpa Jim comes in. Although he works with all students that are assigned to him several require assistance with reading comprehension.
Jim meets with each student who should have read at home with parent etc. However, many parents don’t speak/read English and therefore the assignments do not get done. Jim meets with these kids and has them read to him.
He informs the staff that at the beginning of the school year these kids can not read! But, with little steady assistance and attention they become avid readers. He teaches them to “learn to love to learn”.
The kids love reading to Grandpa Jim. His teacher/supervisor notes: “Jim reads on a daily basis. These students do not have anyone to read with them at home. His students have an adult to bond with as well as read with to help them.
Students look forward to their time with Grandpa Jim. The school think he is wonderful. He takes the ball and runs with it; he can be counted on with minimal interface. He works with students in different classes listening to them read.
Being with a caring person is wonderful for children-some who have only Grandpa Jim to pay attention to them. Grandpa Jim is a blessing to the staff and the children he meets with. Jim loves working with his students and regularly volunteers during summer session.
When asked about his volunteer service he states “I work with ESL (English as a Second Language) students in two 2nd grade and three 3rd grade classes. I work with the students individually in a quiet area of the library. One of the classes has all ESL students. In the other classes I help with math, English and test taking skills. Occasionally we have a chance to just sit and talk. I am fortunate in that I am able to select my classes myself. I have a good relationship with the teachers. I enjoy want I do.”
Grandpa Jim recently received the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award for volunteering over 4,000 hours in a lifetime. Though he has served so much, he expects to continue his tradition of volunteering.
FE’ SEVA
Fe Seva is an amazing and dedicated Foster Grandparent volunteer, whose love for children, knowledge and community giving has evolved to a very high level of volunteering.
She currently volunteers five hours a day, five days a week for a total of 25 hours a week volunteering with three different teachers at Tahoe Elementary School in Sacramento, CA, a Title 1 school, and has been doing so for the past six years. Fe opts to also volunteer each summer for six weeks at the same school. At her young age of 81, she remains as enthused about tutoring as she did during her 40 years of teaching in the Philippines during her career. She utilizes many of the same skills she always had and is a great aid to her teachers. Academically, Fe helps the students by providing quick and positive feedback to the children. She helps them to slow down and check for careless mistakes. Her teachers feel that she is very helpful and wonderful to work with. She has helped to bring students together as a community. Emotionally, Fe offers the much-needed knowledge that someone else truly cares about them and their academic progress.
Mrs. Tiffany Westenburger writes, “I eagerly await the beginning of each school year to find out if I am going to be lucky enough to have Fe Seva volunteering in my room, Her deep commitment to the students and myself is made clear by her consistent and thorough job performance. She provides total feedback to the students and myself about their daily assignments. She diligently corrects and puts helpful comments on their reading and math assignments and tests. With Fe’s help I am able to review the students’ progress with them in a much more timely manner. I deeply value and appreciate the amount of effort Fe puts into her work. I do not know how I would make it without her volunteering in my classroom”.
Last year, Fe received the President’s Lifetime Achievement award by volunteering over 4000 hours. Fe wears her pin proudly.
Fe’ is one of 100 Foster Grandparents in Sacramento, California that offer meaningful volunteer opportunities for low-income seniors 60 and over to provide love and support to children with special or exceptional needs. All Foster Grandparents receive an hourly stipend of $2.65 to reimburse any cost while volunteering a minimum of 15 hours a week. Thousands of children have been helped by the Foster Grandparents in the 30 years of the program. Some children are mentally, physically, or emotionally disabled; others are abused, neglected or in the juvenile justice system. Every child is special, but many lack the presence of that special someone who can make all the difference in the world.
TERESA BERGERON
Terry Petzar Bergeron devoted 16 years (1978-1994) to caring for her husband Paul who suffered from early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Even during her care giving tenure, Terry turned her attention to helping other caregivers endure the agonizing struggle characteristic of dementia diseases. She volunteered at the Brevard Alzheimer’s Association, assisting in may capacities and served a term on the Board of Directors (1982-1984). She was there to support staff and caregivers on their long and arduous care giving journeys. She shared her experience willingly to help others—she spoke to groups, called on caregivers and care receivers at home, shopped for them, accompanied them to doctor appointments, provided respite, assisted them in making placement decisions, visited them in nursing facilities—she became an “expert” willing to assist anyone, anytime, anywhere! She often took late night calls from frazzled caregivers who needed comfort, support, and care suggestions.
As she uncovered more and more families coping with dementia diseases, in 1991 she responded by starting a monthly support group at her church, Holy Name of Jesus in Indialantic, Florida. Thirteen years later, the support group continues. As regularly as her kind, compassionate hear beats, she is present the second Tuesday evening of every month year round. Her support does not end with patient placement or death; caregivers become a part of her extended family forever! (She regularly visits caregivers who are now in nursing homes themselves.)
Once Paul was placed, she began her day at the nursing home, feeding him and other residents who needed assistance, followed by a stop at the Brevard’s Alzheimer’s Foundation office to see what she could do to help. She worked on fundraisers, mail-outs, represented the organization at health & wellness fairs, community events and was instrumental in advocating for community education to reduce the center to volition. Then, she volunteered to help in that center! She has adopted a dementia specific adult daycare living facility, and has racked up a long resume of volunteer activities and support including relocating residents during recent hurricane evacuations.
In 1995, she advocated for a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation “Faith in Action” Grant that would provide free respite for caregivers in Brevard County. Church volunteers provided her breaks during her desperate years of caring for her husband and she wanted respite to be available to all caregivers countywide. Hence, she became, and 10 years later still is an active volunteer in Space Coast Interfaith Respite Program. She assists all volunteer orientation/training workshops throughout the county education and preparing volunteers who provide temporary relief to caregivers and companionship for care receivers. Nearly 1000 persons have attended trainings.
Terry remarried 6 years ago and before her new husband’s stoke, they did respite together. She has added stroke support to her resume, assisting, educating, and encouraging caregivers with the same enthusiasm and energy as she continues to do in the Alzheimer’s disease arena!
MARGARET MCGLYNN
Margaret McGlynn has the quiet humility and confidence of a leader who leads by consistent example. She is a remarkable young woman, who literally change peoples lives and in so doing makes the most difficult tasks appear natural.
For example, while volunteering at the Don Bosco Children’s center, she met a young abused boy named Charlie. Because of the abuse Charlie had turned within himself and could not be reached. Margaret combined her love of animals with her compassion for Charlie and taught Charlie how to love by teaching him how to train dogs. This effort changed Charlie’s life.
Margaret’s commitment to others is not limited to her consistent work at the Don Bosco Children’s center. If there is a job to be done, Margaret is there without having to be asked. Margaret helped collect over 2,000 books for the Smith Lake Elementary School in Smith Lake New Mexico because she and her sister heard of the school’s need for books. Margaret has a love for reading fostered by her parents, and spontaneously was moved with her Sister to provide books to those who had none.
Margaret has made community service a seamless part of a life filled with both scholarly excellence and athletic achievement. She is ranked first is her High School class of 181 and earned a letter in Junior Varsity Soccer. Indeed, her days at school are also filled with activities including the school newspaper, the school play and library to name but few.
Margaret is community leader not because her parents want her to be, but rather because she thinks that this is the best way to live the Gospel of Life that she has learned from her parents. This is not something, however, that Margaret would ever say herself. When I asked why she does so many things she simply smiled and went about her work. That is Margaret-quiet and consistent care for others under taken with great humility.
Margaret is one of those rare points of light who leads and inspire others. She exemplifies all that is good about today’s youth. She is a normal teen who has chosen to live the teaching of the Gospel that we are happier when we give that when we receive.
THE SEEING EYE/4-H PUPPY RAISERS
The Seeing Eye(c) is the oldest dog guide school in America. For 75 years, they have provided Seeing Eye dogs to people who are blind or visually impaired. The organization recently matched their 14,000th dog. Today there are more that 1,800 active graduates of The Seeing Eye around the world.
The Seeing Eye has been recognized due to all their work in the community as the 138th Point of Light through Fomer President Bush’s Administration, in honor of the volunteers at the organization’s headquarters, who walk the dogs, greet guests, guide tour groups, run errands for students, and complete any number of the daily tasks needing attention.
However, The Seeing Eye believe another group of special volunteers also deserve recognition…the puppy raiser families who set the dogs on an early course toward their eventual destiny.
Since 1942, The Seeing Eye has partnered with 4-H clubs to provide volunteer puppy raisers. These volunteers provide future Seeing Eye dogs with a foundation of love, trust, and gentle guidance the dogs could never receive growing up in a kennel.
At about seven weeks of age, a puppy goes to its volunteer puppy raiser’s home where it lives for the next year to fifteen months. Puppy raisers attend regular Puppy Club meetings, organized by local 4-H programs. There, they learn how to teach their puppies basic obedience: sit, rest and come, lessons crucial to the dog’s formal training when it returns to the school.
A large part of the puppy raising experience is exposing the puppy to a variety of social situations it will encounter as a working dog. Regular outings coordinated through the Puppy Club provide many of these experiences, but families plan other activities on their own.
Not only do the puppy-raising families make an extraordinary commitment in terms of time, since the puppies must accompany the puppy raiser virtually 24-hours a day, but also in terms of their personal property. It is the puppy raiser, after all, who teaches the early lessons about chewing, digging, and housebreaking!
About half or the puppy raisers are between 9 and 19 years old. One person in the family has primary responsibility for the pup’s care. Providing love and companionship is the easiest part. The hardest part proves to be returning the puppy to The Seeing Eye so it can pursue its special destiny. However, many puppy raisers view the return of their puppy as a most rewarding part of the experience, knowing that their generosity of spirit will give another the gift of independence and dignity. Parents tell the organization that being a puppy raiser teaches their children the value of compassion and altruism. Many of them ultimately become nurses, teachers, or animal care workers.
There are currently 820 families in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware raising more that 850 dogs. This dedicated corps of volunteers is an invaluable part of The Seeing Eye program. It is because of the volunteers that the organization can continue to provide graduates with high quality Seeing Eye dogs; dogs that change people’s lives.
MARY LOU DUNCAN
Ms. Duncan began volunteering at Palmetto Health Baptist in the role of Personal Touch Volunteer upon her retirement in July of 1992 and since that time has accumulated 3395.2 service hours. An exemplary volunteer, Ms. Duncan upholds the value of extended dedication to volunteer service as well as excellence in delivery of service.
As a Personal Touch Volunteer, Ms. Duncan works directly with patients, offering practical assistance, meaningful emotional support and compassion to the lonely and suffering. She volunteers on Family Place, the unit which combines services for mothers recovering from delivery and for women recovering from gynecologic surgery. Ms. Duncan reinforces instructions about baby care and breast-feeding, which studies show directly with adoptions. She works with anxious first time or unwed moms who are often disconnected from the larger community. In addition, she answers bedside and bathroom call lights, packs and transports patient’s belongings, transports patients, offers the old-fashioned “nursing back rub” for relaxation and healing, and meets a multitude of other performance criteria.
Ms. Duncan has exceeded her responsibilities as a Personal Touch Volunteer by participating on our Steering Committee on the issue of PTV Retention, by interviewing prospective volunteers and by training new volunteers.
As a member of The Blythewood Church of God of Prophecy, Ms. Duncan once again contributes hard work and dedicated volunteer hours. She writes and designs a weekly newsletter that serves as a church bulletin. In addition, she sings in the church choir, works in the nursery, and teaches the adult Sunday school class.
Ms. Duncan is a kind and caring person who enjoys helping others. When told that she was being nominated, she responded, “There are so many people who do so much! Why me?” Her response confirmed that she is humble in her giving and truly a valued and well-deserved nominee.
JULIE MILLER
Growing up as a young girl, bearing witness to her beloved, deaf older sister’s anguished from being prejudiced against, and excluded by many hearing peers. Julie transformed her grief into a hopeful, life long commitment to help deaf youngsters of all ages become a welcomed, vital part of their larger community.
At age sixteen, as a high school sophomore, the petite, yet powerful activist for inclusion and diversity founded an exceptional community/school based Children’s Theatre Performing Arts group she called Hand-In Hand, exemplifying her life long commitment to connect thousands of deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing youth in her community, previously segregated for over eight decades. Selecting multi-cultural children’s scripts, Julie helps bridge the gap between diverse groups of high school teenagers, teaching them to respect and embrace each other’s culture through the simultaneous use of acting, dance, sign, and spoken language when performing together for elementary and middle school audiences.
The American School of the Deaf, the first residential school for Deaf youth in the United States, established in 1921, is located in the center of West Hartford, Connecticut. It’s Deaf and hard of hearing youngsters have been segregated from the surrounding, hearing youth and schools in the community since that time. Julie Miller demonstrates an extraordinary, long standing commitment to break down barriers of prejudice, advocate for diversity, and promote inclusion of deaf youth of all ages into the mainstream of society.
Julie fills many roles, but first and foremost, she has acquired leadership skills that will serve her the rest of her life. A fluent signer and actress herself, she is the founder, director, producer, choreographer, scenic and costume designer and builder, treasurer, and is responsible for funding and maintaining a budget. Julie teaches hearing actors to sign, works with school principles to arrange performances in elementary and middle school, creates and displays advertisements, and handles press engagement, while still maintaining outstanding grades at school. In attempting to solve a community problem of segregation between deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing youngsters, Julie has spent hundreds of volunteer service hours by creating this outstanding program, which involves, as well as benefits youth.
Hand-In-Hand provides a tremendous service by bringing together youth from different backgrounds, as well as parents, teachers, and other adult members of the community as well.
Now in its second year, Hand-In-hand can be replicated elsewhere in the country, and sustained in the future with new teams of directors, actors, and participating schools who can be taught the skills and tools needed to maintain and continue the program in their own unique way.
Last year alone, Hand-In-Hand has performed for well over two thousand youngsters, elementary, middle, high schools and even college age students, as well as scores of teachers and parents in Connecticut schools thus far. Julie was determined to create a unique, pleasurable, long term solution to bridge together diverse communities utilizing her knowledge, compassion and caring for children, as well as her skills in the performing arts, the latter that she has stayed committed to study and practice for well over ten years.
OWNLY WILLIAMS
Ownly is the Pastor and CEO of Harvest Deliverance Center that operates a Food and Clothing pantry that is opened once a weeks as well as a soup kitchen that is also open once a week. There is no charge for the food, the clothes or the meals.
Many people coming for food have need for guidance or someone to listen to them. Quite often they come to the Pastor during the pantry times. It is because they recognize the love that he has for the people. He is willing to use his own time to help others. He does not hesitate to try and find agencies to help someone if it is outside the organization’s means to help. Many times he gives to people from his own packet when he has need of the money for himself.
At one time the homeless shelter was full almost all the time. Because of legal issues, the church attorney recommended to close the facility until such times we could do renovations to the building as well as hire people to be on site 24 hours a day. This is a project that has the pastor’s heart, and there are so many people coming to the Center for a place to stay. It was decided to get the program up and running again. This will be another project that will help people in the Carrier Mills area. May of those people have small children and they are sleeping in cars. Pastor Williams’ comment was, “we can’t allow this situation to continue without offering shelters. We must get the shelter open again.”
The Center gives toys away to the children that come through the food pantry and soup kitchen each Christmas. Usually there are around 300 new gifts given away. Many people contribute to this outreach program so the children have at least one gift.
He has personal relationship with the Lord and wants everyone to know it. He is not ashamed. He is the same every time you see him. He sees no color, he does not notice whether or not you are in a higher class of people than others. Unless he does not see you, he will never fail to greet you with excitement and gladness.
The youth of the surrounding area like to be with him and usually when school is out, as he is out and about doing whatever needs to be done; you will see his truck loaded with young people. Pastor Williams meets them where they are; he does not look or talk down to them. He talks to them and gives them his attention just as he does adults. He has a unique rapport with them.
CASA OF THE EASTERN PANHANDLE VOLUNTEERS
CASA stands for Court Appointed Special Advocate. CASAs are trained volunteers who are appointed by a judge to investigate cases in which a child has been removed from his or her home because of abuse or neglect. CASA is a non-profit nationwide program, and there are currently ten other CASA organizations in West Virginia.
The children the volunteers advocate for have experienced sexual abuse, physical abuse, and physical neglect in their own homes. Often, the children are moved around between foster homes, shelters, and relatives’ homes. They have been hurt, they are scared, they feel isolated, and they don’t know if or when they will see their parents again. They need a friend. They need a CASA volunteer.
The volunteers are a variety of community members who are assigned to represent abused and neglected children in Circuit Court proceedings. They are often the “eyes and ears” of the court: interviewing family members, digging up records, finding much needed services for the children. The volunteers submit a monthly report to all participants in the hearings updating them on what has been happening with the child and the family, as most lawyers and social workers do not have the time to do the kind of detailed investigation the CASAs perform. The court proceedings usually go on for months, and many times last for longer than one year.
Most importantly, the CASA volunteers meet with the children frequently, offering them a familiar face out of the shuffle of case workers and lawyers. If the children need counseling, medication, special education, glasses, or any other service, the CASA volunteer finds the service for the child and brings it to the attention of the court. Moreover, the volunteers assess the needs of the parents in order to give them a chance to get their lives in order and their children home. These needs are often met with parenting classes, drug rehabilitation programs, budgeting, and counseling. The CASAs find safe, loving, permanent homes for every abused and neglected child they advocate for.
