CARL ZIMMERMAN

Carl Zimmerman is the founder of AMP which is inspired by the Adult and Child Together (ACT)/Mentor/Peer Program, Inc. He was excited to begin this organization and was inspired by Julia Goldstein, the founder of Partners for Educational Excellence Program. Zimmerman is a retired commercial artist and has devoted his time to help others.

Zimmerman has many skills and talents and uses them to help others. He has personally reached out to kindergarten children as Colorful Carl the Clown and Grandpa the Clown for many years. He has amused the children throughout the Borough of Queens with one important lesson: Learn to read. Read to learn. While working, if he finds children who need additional help, he finds them a “grandma” or “grandpa” volunteer through the ACT program.

Carl Zimmerman brought the ACT program to Queens in 1991. Since then, he has personally registered over 900 elders to serve over 42 schools in Queens. Now, Zimmerman has begun AMP@115. This is a mentoring organization that pairs elder mentors as grandparent figures to children as well as youth to youth. The initial children selected for AMP@115 are inattentive, possible at-risk first or second grade students that are paired with grandmas or grandpas. However, there is a second phase of the program where youth mentor youth. When the child reaches third grade, they get a youth mentor who is an honor student that acts as a big brother or big sister that cares.

In addition to starting AMP@115, Zimmerman has also found an appropriation from the New York City Municipal Credit Union to start a College Education Fund for AMP Student Mentors. This will enable them to receive an ongoing stipend toward a City University of New York (CUNY) higher education.

Zimmerman is also a member of the Planning Board of the Queens International Year of Volunteers (IYV) 2001 which is the United Nations worldwide project that honors volunteers. He has assumed the responsibility of chairing the Graphic Design Art Contest for High School Students of Queens to create a cover design for the Annual Journal. This results in bringing attention to the high school student as well as the community as a whole with regards to the importance of volunteerism.

Zimmerman will continue to work with AMP and dreams to have the Graduate Students of CUNY form an AMP Peer Organization to create a permanent Queens Liberty Fair Park, which would be like a World’s Fair or Epcot Center. He wants to ultimately create a tourist attraction whereby the greater community of Queens may be proud of their students.

SHANTELLE COCHRAN

The Layton Youth Court was established September 1998. Youth Courts are a diversionary juvenile program whose purpose is to provide those youth offenders, with no previous criminal history, a second chance not to receive a juvenile record. The Court adjudicates misdemeanor offenses for juveniles 12-17. Youth offenders are referred to the court by resource police officers in local schools, patrol officers, and by the schools themselves.

After agreeing to plea guilty, the youth offenders are sentenced by a panel of their peers. Youth Court members are trained to serve as judges, bailiffs, clerks, mentors, peer counselors, and all aspects of running a successful court. Many sentencing actions used by the Youth judges are programs administered locally by the town court, and some are run entirely by the youth. Among such programs are Peer Counseling and the CHOICES Class.

Youth Court is a very demanding volunteer effort for the youth to give something back to their community. Members of the Court spend the spring and summer devoted to a significant amount of time completing the training course required to serve on the Court. This is done on their own time, after school and during the evenings. Court is held every Wednesday evening at 5:00 p.m. at the Layton City Center.

Shantelle Cochran is a member of the Youth Court and serves with enthusiasm. A Utah State Youth Court Board sponsors an annual three-day Youth Court Conference every year. Shantelle attended one in June 1999, which was held in American Fork. She also attended another one in June 2000, held at USU in Logan, at which she was one of the emcees, who were in charge of the entire conference. The conference helps youth build skills in leadership, communication, and team building. A variety of other skills are also offered in workshops.

Shantelle was also able to attend a National Youth Court Conference held in New Mexico in October 2000. She is currently on the State Youth Court Board as a youth member and served on the Committee to organize and run the 2001 Conference held in June in Cedar City. Since Shantelle became a member of the Court, she has served as a senior judge, who chairs the sentencing panel, as well as a judge on other panels, bailiff, clerk, and secretary. This year Shantelle is the President of the Layton Youth Court.

As a mentor, Shantelle has exhibited genuine concern for the youth she is assigned to guide. She is a very responsible person and is dedicated to the Youth Court. She takes her tasks seriously and is extremely reliable. She has been involved in several extra activities that the Youth Court has been invited to participate in. She was chosen to be in the Youth Court Promotional Video for the state of Utah. The Layton Youth Court received the Silver Bowl award from the United Way in Apri1 1999 due to the tireless effort of Shantelle. She and other members of the Youth Court were involved in the passing of the Youth Court bill by the 1999 legislature. Shantelle received a Student Presidential Service Award for her service in 1999 and 2000. To date, Shantelle already has completed 198.75 hours of service with the Layton Youth Court this year and will receive the Presidential Student Service Award for the third year in a row.

USS SAIPAN (LHA2)

Returning to its Norfolk, Va. homeport following a five-and-half month deployment, the United States Navy general-purpose amphibious assault ship USS Saipan (LHA-2) spent 2001 assisting the local community. Upon entering the Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY) in Portsmouth, Va. in mid-February for a 13-month long Complex Overhaul maintenance period, Saipan’s command leadership seized this rare opportunity to participate in community outreach. Since shipyard and civilian contractors would perform most of the work, Saipan’ s crew had more time than usual for volunteer community activities.

In March, the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice requested assistance renovating one of its private provider correctional facilities – the USS Justice (YP-678), a former U.S. Navy Yard Patrol training boat. Used by the Tidewater Environmental Program (TEP) since 1996 as an “alternative sentencing” program for non-violent male juvenile offenders ages 16-19 requiring substance abuse treatment, Justice serves as a 17-bed treatment facility and classroom for wayward teens. Along with substance abuse counseling, TEP teaches its “cadets” discipline, seamanship, first aid, CPR, marine science, and most importantly offers a chance to obtain the GED, of which 90% TEP participants attain.

Operated by Associated Marine Institutes, Justice is located in downtown Norfolk on the piers at the Nautilus National Maritime Center, a 120,000 square-foot science and technology center exploring the power of the sea. Regretfully, Justice was suffering from weather corrosion. Adding to this unsightly dilemma, the Nautilus’ pier was soon to unveil its newest tourist attraction, the battleship USS Wisconsin (BB-64). For two weeks, Sailors from Saipan’ s Deck Department, specially skilled in shipboard preservation, volunteered over 500 man-hours sanding, painting and polishing the 80-foot vessel, completing work one day before Wisconsin’s grand opening, saving TEP precious time and money.

During this same time, Saipan learned of Brighton Elementary School. Located just blocks from NNSY, the 45-year-old school had fallen into disrepair. Comprised mostly of students from low-income and minority families, the ravages of time and a 350-body student population had taken its toll. Its electrical wiring was not up to standard and the facility’s overall appearance detracted from good learning. Unfortunately, Brighton did not have funding for necessary repairs. When Saipan’ s command chaplain visited Brighton to assess the needs, he was astonished to see conditions as bad as those in poor European countries.

Immediately, Saipan sprang into action, organizing volunteers and coordinating working parties. During Brighton’s spring break, over 160 Saipan volunteers spent numerous hours making repairs using donated materials. The five-day effort resulted in renovations worth approximately $25,000. The following week, Saipan officially “adopted” Brighton and immediately established an educational partnership, with 20 crewmembers regularly serving as tutors and teacher’s aides. Over the summer, volunteers returned for more extensive renovation work. Through media coverage of Saipan’ s on-going partnership, the local community learned of Brighton’s needs, spurring additional volunteerism. For Saipan’s efforts, the City of Portsmouth designated December 2001 as “USS Saipan Month.”

MARISA FLAVIN

Marisa Flavin has been a tutor at the “Saturday School” for Eugene Myer Elementary school children in inner city Washington, DC for four years. She is the youngest tutor in the program and relates very well to the students. She recognizes needs that adults may overlook and takes initiative to enrich the students’ experience.

Marisa’s work meets the community need of “one to one” attention for gifted students in the inner city. Due to the emphasis in inner-city schools on raising average standardized test scores, gifted students are unfortunately ignored. Acknowledging and assisting these children in the inner city in the short term will encourage them to develop their gifts. Hopefully, Saturday School will encourage them to succeed and reverse the downward spiral of the inner city education program.

Marisa recognizes the need to enrich reading skills taught on Saturday. She began a “book drive” in her suburban neighborhood, collecting children’s books to bring to Myer. Her students enjoy casually borrowing these books, which are replaced by ongoing donations. Marisa also convinced her suburban neighbors to register Eugene Myer as a recipient of “grocery points” when they shopped at Giant and Safeway. These points accrue toward computer donations to Myer Elementary.

So often gifted children are the subjects of peer pressure not to use their talents. Saturday School attempts to show these kids the enjoyment and the stimulation, which comes from exercising their minds. Marisa encourages children to construct their own mathematical flash cards and rewards correct answers with hand stamps, which delights the students. She organizes holiday programs to commemorate Christmas, Thanksgiving and Martin Luther King Day. She makes these programs interactive using word games, math games and arts and crafts. She also helps to organize field trips.

Marisa has devoted hundreds of hours to improve the quality of gifted education at the Myer Saturday School and received no school credit for her participation. She recognizes the need and the unlimited potential of these inner-city children and acts to accommodate these needs and maximize their potential. Although the long-term impact of this enrichment is difficult to measure, the immediate impact is apparent in regular students attendance.

HOLLI PRUITT

Holli Pruitt is an adult volunteer at Children’s Medical Center of Dallas. As of April, she has contributed over 900 hours. Children’s Medical Center (CMC) is a 322-bed nonprofit state-of-the-art pediatric center for North Texas, a teaching hospital whose mission is making life better for children regardless of their ability to pay. Children’s treats 200,000 annually; projected 1998, Children’ s provided 27.5 million dollars in charity care.

In a true sense, Holli’s volunteering at Children’s was a “coming home” experience. She was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor at the age of three. And thus began her relationship with CMC which extends today. She still battles side effects from the medical treatment she received over 18 years ago. Before her brain tumor was diagnosed, she was bright, happy, and energetic and took great pride in memorizing Bible verses for her Sunday school class. And she still does these things today despite academic struggles due to the radiation treatment. Though she is 21, she is a freshman at Collin County Community College and has had to enroll in special education classes since 3rd grade. Holli suffers from a growth hormone deficiency so her physical appearance is much younger than her actual age.

Holli knows the fright of surgery, of painful recovery, and life changing after affects. Consequently, she received the respect of staff and volunteers as one who has earned the right to speak. Because of her relationship with Children’s, Holli decided to volunteer at the hospital. She said it was her way to “give back.” Throughout the past seven years, this self -disciplined, motivated young lady has left her friends and home during her summers, weekends, and holiday breaks, to befriend patients at Children’s, commuting over 40 miles round trip.

Holli has demonstrated flexibility and a positive attitude in working in a variety of departments in the Medical Center. She has observed many difficult situations including infants who have been abused, children with birth defects and kids recovering from serious accidents. Holli has spent many hours restocking and pricing candy in the gift shop. She has spent countless shifts filing charts and assembling patient packets. She has made flower, balloon and candy deliveries. She has helped the staff, by providing both clerical and patient support.

After working allover the hospital, she found her favorite spot to be “sitting” with patients whose parents cannot be at the hospital with their children. Sitters care for the patients by feeding them, changing diapers, bathing, and comforting them. Holli is a trusted volunteer “sitter” and has spent time with patient’s ages 3 days to 8 years old.

RITA FRANCE

Edgefield County, South Carolina receives many foreign nationals in the area to provide agriculture help to the local farmers. Often, the nationals have a language barrier, and the simple activities of daily living such as shopping, dealing with a bank, buying gas, and exchanging funds is a big problem for this diverse population. The Ridge Baptist Association through its missionary functions decided to assist with this community problem by helping the Hispanic population to function in the community. As a part of their intent, they sought volunteers to facilitate the program.

Rita France is one of those volunteers who teaches Conversational English classes at the Ridge Spring Baptist Church. She learned about the churches in Ridge Baptist Association and their initial intent to provide conversational English classes through a friend. She began to attend the meetings in September 2000. During these meetings a calendar was established, they coordinated and taught the volunteers how to teach, arranged for class registration, and distributed information to the local area regarding the classes.

The students in the program are adults from Mexico and Guatemala. There is one class for the children who range in ages from 5 to 12. The eight adults are placed in a separate classroom, which are held for one hour. Then they are placed in a group class that lasts for 15 minutes. The participants are then rewarded during a social period where refreshments are served. During these times, they encourage the students to engage in English practice sessions to improve their language skills. France is responsible for teaching an adult class, and she leads the group class and is responsible for providing the blessings prior to the social.

Since the program’s inception, the students can now greet and introduce themselves, give their address and telephone numbers, which is a great accomplishment after only two months of instruction. These same students could not answer the registration questions in English just months ago. During the social, they encourage the students to interact with the visiting association church members who provide the refreshments. This is very rewarding to the students and the teachers to watch these individuals develop and become a part of the community.

These classes are held at the Ridge Spring Baptist Church. France has worked the registration table because of her ease with both languages. She has also been instrumental in the families becoming more comfortable, which resulted in an increase in enrollment. The mission of the Church and the volunteers is to facilitate the transition of the Hispanic population in the area so that they are able to function without the language barrier. This will help them attend to daily activities of living. France travels twenty miles to volunteer for this effort. She receives no stipend or reimbursement, but she is committed and will continue the effort to aid her community.

FAMILY LINKS

Parent and Child Guidance Center was founded in 1957 to focus on aiding individuals and their families through the trials of mental retardation and mental health. The Whale’s Tale was founded in 1970 to address substance abuse, early intervention/prevention, crisis intervention, residential treatment, and more. Both of these human service agencies labored independently of each other in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but each of them were committed to improving the lives of children and their families.

Family Links was formed to join the former Parent and Child Guidance Center and The Whale’s Tale in order to offer a comprehensive continuum of human services in the areas of prevention, intervention, and rehabilitation for children, families and individuals in greater western Pennsylvania. Family Links served include mental health, substance abuse, early intervention/prevention, mental retardation, crisis intervention, emergency shelter, residential treatments, independent living, housing assistance, and community support services.

Family Links Goals are to deliver quality family support and enrichment in a wide range of services in a seamless manner. They help clients become productive and contribute to members of the community. They return clients to a more wholesome, safe and loving family environment. This organization merged the two staffs numbering over 500, and they recruited to find outstanding candidates to head the new division of Best Practice and the reconfigured division of Communications.

The operations of the two entities have emerged along with the Board of Directors. Family Links is now a future-oriented, mission-driven group determined to set the organization on a course toward transforming the world for the less fortunate. The agency is now charged with attaining an even greater capacity through training, consultation, and continuous quality improvement activities. Over 3000 human service professionals have attended their training programs.

Family Links is a vital service in Pennsylvania. They offer an unparalleled array of services that assist the homeless, destitute, the abused and exploited, as well as the mentally challenged and chemically dependent. The agencies services are designed to aid the clients and the rest of their family. They help all individuals become healthy functioning adults.

RAY LOVELY

Ray Lovely’s enthusiasm and innovation have led to the expansion of Olympic National Park’s Volunteer-In-Parks (VIP) program. He greatly expanded the use of volunteers to assist in the construction and maintenance of visitor facilities, such as the new Living Forest Trail near the Olympic National Park Visitor Center in Port Angeles, Washington.

The Living Forest trail is a 1/3-mile loop trail that passes through second growth forest and wetland setting with views to nearby Peabody Creek. These types of facilities serve to both educate visitors about the environment and the need to conserve and restore natural and cultural resources. The ½-mile Moments in Time Trail at Lake Crescent is another accessible loop trail that Lovely and his volunteers helped make possible. Each year thousands of elementary school children enjoy these trails as part of guided educational walks.

Lovely has been sensitive to community needs by working with high school-age volunteers seeking to gain skills by performing community service by working on projects within Olympic National Park that are within and near the City of Port Angeles. Each year, Lovely is asked to work with local high school students in their efforts to perform community service projects for various reasons, such as meeting requirements for high school graduation or becoming an Eagle Scout. He has also reached out to retirees who are interested in performing community service projects and want to work on projects within Olympic National Park.

Ray Lovely has also been innovative in that he recognized the potential of utilizing the many skills of retired residents to assist in ongoing maintenance of certain of the park’s visitor facilities. Due to a lack of human resources to coordinate these and other volunteers, the potential for working with retirees was not being realized. The volunteers now play a critical role for the park’s Division of Maintenance to help to keep the park’s visitors facilities in good condition.

Lovely’s desire to expand the use of volunteers has enabled the park to utilize the services of certain volunteer groups requiring more logistical support than could be provided by park staff. An example is the use of the Landmark Volunteers, which is a group of high school-aged volunteers from around the country who have assisted in completing the Living Forest Trail in addition to other trail construction projects. For the last three years, a group of 12 Landmark Volunteers and their leader have traveled to Port Angeles to perform work for two weeks on a trail project within the park. The group stays at a nearby church where they also make their meals. Lovely has provided logistical coordination and worked directly with the students on the projects.

Ray Lovely has worked as a volunteer at Olympic National Park for nearly 10 years and has donated approximately 4,500 hours of time to the Volunteer-In-Parks program.

CHARLENE CLARK

Charlene Clark, pet therapist, and “Buster Brown,” a very special pet therapy dog, have been volunteering at New Hampshire Hospital since 1994. They work at a psychiatric hospital with 144 adult beds, 41 elder care beds and a 22-bed children and adolescent unit. Studies have found some persons with mental illness feel disconnected from everything and everyone around them. Pet therapy is one of the many therapeutic interventions that has a long history of benefit to persons with mental illness and is used in conjunction with other treatment modalities.

Clark and Buster visit with persons suffering from depression, personality disorders, schizophrenia, Bi-polar disorder, dementia, neuropsychotic disorders and other forms of mental illness. Clark uses Buster to establish a patient-therapist relationship that in some instances acts as a springboard to the patient accepting ensuing treatment strategies. In practice, Buster functions as an addition to Clark. She uses Buster Brown to actively engage patients in meaningful and therapeutic situations. Together, they stimulate responses, which may not be shown in relationships to humans alone. Patients express feelings without fear of rejection or unattainable expectations as Buster accepts them unconditionally and affectionately.

Clark is a very positive individual and is always willing to share pet stories during her visits and also actively teaches patients the importance of responsible pet ownership and how to care for them. Clark and Buster have a positive effect on the lives they touch as demonstrated by the responses that are elicited from their visits. Patients ask to hold Buster and pat him as they talk to Clark about animals they have had throughout their lives. Eyes sparkle and smiles form as Buster wags his tail and gives dog kisses in response to the attention he is getting. These interactions help patients maintain a sense of identity and promote their overall well-being.

Clark balances many commitments and other volunteer efforts to make a difference in the lives of people with mental illness. Many citizens still have an overwhelming fear of people who have a mental illness. However, Clark, through her volunteer service, is committed to building a better understanding about mental illness throughout her community to dispel these fears.

GRETA MENKE

In 1999 Women and Children’s Horizons, Inc. expanded its Law Enforcement Advocacy Program (LEAP) in order to support victims at the scenes of domestic abuse crimes throughout Kenosha County. All law enforcement agents in Kenosha County were trained in aspects of domestic abuse and the services provided by Women and Children’s Horizons. Each time an officer responds to a domestic abuse crime, he or she offers to call a LEAP Advocate to assist the victim. An advocate then responds to the scene to offer support, information and a personal plan to help the victim stay safe during a frightening time.

While at the scene of the domestic abuse crime, the advocate’s role is to educate, support and counsel the victim on the cycle of abuse, power and control issues, the effects of witnessing domestic abuse on children (as appropriate), options for the victim, and safety planning. Volunteers have an opportunity to use their natural skills and talents to assist and empower others while gaining valuable experience for their own futures. Volunteers were aggressively recruited throughout the county and to the dismay of the program director, not many individuals wanted to put themselves at a crime scene.

Greta Menke is one of those volunteers, however, who took the risk. She had the empathy and courage necessary to satisfy a growing need. Staff of Women and Children’s Horizons covered the city, but they had only a few volunteers to cover the rest of the county that included small towns and rural areas. Due to the limited volunteers, Menke ended up on call for LEAP nearly every day.

She built a special relationship with the law enforcement officers in the county and many victims had the opportunity to work with her. The expansion of Women and Children’s Horizons LEAP program into the county would not have been possible without Menke’s help and many rural victims of domestic abuse would have been denied an empathetic ear.

Menke’s understanding of the issues surrounding domestic abuse and her willingness to be on call nearly every day endears her to the staff and board of directors of Women and Children’s Horizons, local law enforcement officers and the victims with whom she has contact.