Katharine’s Wish
Katharine's Wish provides comfort to children receiving medical care in Minnesota and Wisconsin
For almost six years, Katharine's Wish has donated over 5,000 new toys, stuffed animals and books to children in hospitals and clinics. These items let children know someone is thinking of them during their difficult time.
Each year, the organization holds a two-week toy drive that allows the community to drop off donated items at more than 20 locations. Due to the generosity of the community, Katherine’s Wish is able to expand the number of medical facilities that receive donations each year. Additionally, the organization created a donor-advised family fund through the Eau Claire Community Foundation to issue grants to hospitals around the country to purchase new toys and books for children.
Katharine's Wish began as a promise kept by 14-year old Katharine Rhoten of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. In January 2008, Rhoten was visiting Disney World with her family when she was suddenly rushed by ambulance from the theme park to the ICU at Children's Hospital in Orlando, Florida where she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and just hours away from going into a diabetic coma.
Rhoten, then 9 years-old, felt the hospital was a scary place, as she underwent treatment. However, the pain of this experience was lessened, because each time Rhoten had a procedure, she was given a stuffed animal to ease the pain and distract her.
As a result, Rhoten promised when she was better that she would help other children who were sick and scared. To this day, despite Rhoten’s physical challenges with type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, she continues to keep her word and be a champion by always thinking of others.
Martha Burger
Martha Burger has spent the past 24 years providing access to health care to low-income, uninsured individuals as a volunteer nurse at Maple City Health Care Center in Goshen, Indiana. In addition, she has served two terms on the health care center’s board of directors during the years when survival of the organization was less than certain.
Burger began volunteering at Maple City Health Care Center during its first year of operation. In its first year, the center served 350 patients. Now, the health center is a medical home for 3,300 patients. In addition to volunteering as a nurse, Burger and a small group of her friends have sewn and knotted comforters for each new baby born to patients of the center for the past 15 years.
Throughout Burger’s service to the organization, she has helped patients in more than 18,000 visits. Thus, she has donated approximately 10,000 hours of service to the organization, worth about $200,000.
Landon Reid Worsham
The Monday before Christmas, his most recent emergency call, 89-year-old volunteer firefighter Landon Reid Worsham of Chatham, Va., and his crew saved part of a family’s house from flames.
It was all in a day’s work – one of many. Worsham, who will turn 90 on May 1, has been battling blazes as a member of the Chatham Volunteer Fire Department for 60 years. For 50 of those years, he has served as fire chief.
“It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long,” says Worsham, a native of Chatham who joined the department shortly after returning from military duty in the South Pacific during World War II. “I wanted to serve the community and firefighting seemed like something I could do.”
More than a half century later, he’s still going strong. The Chatham Volunteer Fire Department receives between 250 and 275 emergency calls each year. Worsham goes out on around 80 percent of these calls. He also helps train new recruits.
When he’s not volunteering, Worsham works full time, six days a week, at an appliance store he owns.
“I guess some people see my age as elderly or too old to work, but I don’t feel old,” says Worsham. “The Lord has blessed me, and I feel as strong as ever.”
Because of his longevity with the department, Worsham is often asked how many fires he has helped put out.
“I have no idea,” he says. “I’ve never tried to count them.”
For his commitment to service, Worsham has been honored on multiple occasions. Seven years ago, when Chatham built a new firehouse, Worsham was surprised to find that it featured a plaque engraved with his name. This past November, he was surprised again when he was summoned to a town meeting. He arrived to discover the meeting was actually a party in his honor at which he was presented lifetime service awards by the state, county and city.
“I appreciated it so much,” says Worsham. “It was an honor to know that the community is thankful to me.”
For decades, Worsham’s community service work has extended beyond firefighting. Together with Mildred, his wife of more than 65 years, Worsham is an active volunteer at the Chatham Presbyterian Church. Worsham has been superintendent of the church Sunday school for 50 years. He has also been active for almost 50 years in the Chatham Lions Club.
“I’ve always enjoyed helping people,” says Worsham. “If you enjoy helping, you’ll get paid for it. Because when you help someone and they are grateful to you, that is its own reward.”
Jake Cohen
Jake Cohen of Brookline, Massachusetts worked with the Kidney Disease Screening and Awareness Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School to assist with the prevention of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), through free health screenings and awareness workshops at Brookline High School.
Cohen discovered he had Crohn’s disease while a junior in high school and spent a year coping with the diagnosis. After wrestling with Crohn’s for a year, he returned to school passionate about helping patients with chronic diseases and decided to devoted himself to working with the Kidney Disease Screening and Awareness Program (KDSAP).
Cohen became the president of his school’s KDSAP chapter. In addition, he initiated and worked with the central chapter, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, to organize a health conference to help patients suffering with kidney disease understand how to manage their disease.
The conference, the Boston Kidney Health Series 2012, made all of this information accessible in one place. Additionally, due to the success of the first event, KDSAP continues to hold an annual Boston Kidney Health Series each year.
Fresh Youth Initiatives, Inc.
Fresh Youth Initiatives, Inc. (FYI) is a youth development organizations located in New York’s upper Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights. FYI encourages the efforts of young people in the community to design and conduct community service projects.
In 1993, Fresh Youth Initiatives began working with a handful of young people, promoting the value of volunteerism through community service learning. With guidance, young people were able to identify problems they saw in their neighborhood and design community service projects, thus creating their own solutions. The model, based on youth as assets, has been capable of affecting great change through cultivation. Since 1993, FYI has built upon their original foundation. Today, the organization and its young participants have become well known staples to the Washington Heights community.
The organization has established signature programs, like its Community Youth in Action (CYA), an afterschool program where youth participate in service projects that address the community's aesthetics, hunger, homelessness and more. Additionally, FYI participants operate the only youth-lead food pantry in New York City, the Helping Hands Food Pantry, which provides meals to residents in need. In 2012, the pantry distributed over 6,000 food packages, a value of $40,000 to an average of 300 families every month.
Fresh Youth Initiatives, Inc. maintains a sense of family within the confines of its facility as well as throughout the larger community. The organization holds a strong retention rate among its youth, with the average participant remaining active in the program for five years.
Graham Bland
Every Tuesday morning, volunteers at Grace Church United Methodist in Greensboro, North Carolina serve an average of 150 people hot breakfast.
Since June 2013, Graham Bland has served as a breakfast volunteer for the hungry each Tuesday morning at 7a.m. During the summer and throughout the school year, when others slept in, Bland has been there without fail before school starts to help feed the hungry. Every Tuesday morning, Bland stacks cups and provides coffee to the hungry. His fellow volunteers think his commitment is amazing.
Bland has fallen in love with the mission to serve the hungry so that they can start their days with enough energy to get ahead in their search for jobs. Additionally, he is an aspiring magician who shares card tricks with the group while they wait for breakfast.
Bland is an example to the other youth and adults in the church community, but mainly he is a faithful presence and has developed friendships with many of the homeless and hungry breakfast guests.
Doug Clott
Over the past ten years, Doug Clott has spent countless hours as the president of Newton Girls Softball, a non-profit organization committed to providing all girls who reside in Newton, Massachusetts or attend Newton Public Schools with an experience in softball that fosters positive self-esteem, team spirit, and individual growth through personal achievement and as a team member.
Clott ensures the organization provides fair and balanced teams where each girl has an opportunity to play regardless of skill level. Winning is a distant second. The primary focus is building the esteem, confidence and friendship of young girls. Clott carefully selects coaches and board members who understand the mission of the league.
Through the years, Clott has dedicated an immeasurable amount of time to the organization. He has brought integrity to the league. Clott divides players according to talent so everyone has a good experience. Additionally, he volunteers his Sunday evenings teaching players how to pitch. His only reward is seeing the transformation of girls with low self-esteem into confident softball players.
Clott has positively influenced the lives of hundreds of young girls. These girls go out into the community with positive attitudes and confidence affecting many other young girls. Through these girls, Clott’s actions grow exponentially.
Jerry Branski
Jerry Branski founded the Two Lives One Heart Foundation in Franklin, Wisconsin. The organization provides services not covered by insurance to individuals in the southern Wisconsin area who can no longer accomplish everyday tasks due to heart failure as they undergo the heart transplant process. The services provided by the foundation’s volunteers include tasks like lawn care, snow removal, installation of wheelchair ramps, and light housekeeping.
Branski conceived of this foundation while recovering from his own double transplant (heart and kidney). In the foundation’s three years of existence, the organization’s volunteers have helped well over 30 patients. One of the organization’s most memorable tasks is fulfilling a 13-year-old transplant patient’s bucket list in the form of a fishing charter on Lake Michigan so that he could catch a "Big Fish from a Boat.”
Talia Fradkin
Talia Fradkin in Wellington, Florida addresses math literacy through tutoring and by offering computer help to groups and individuals free of charge.
Fradkin tutors math free of charge with her virtual school, reaching and potentially helping over one thousand students school wide. Additionally, computer research and graphic designing is conducted free of charge by the whole Fradkin family.
Fradkin embodies the volunteer spirit. She has created characters and commercials to advertise local book fairs while only an elementary school student herself. She has drawn artwork, alongside her mother to benefit elementary schools, shelved books for countless hours at the public library, volunteered at the local community center, tutored groups and individuals online in math and raised money for countless causes including raising money to supply guide dogs to injured soldiers.
Laurie Hood
Laurie Hood discovered countless animals were being euthanized due to the lack of a no-kill shelter/adoption organization in the Walton County area. Hood formed Alaqua Animal Refuge in 2007. Since that time, Alaqua Animal Refuge has helped find homes for thousands of animals. Currently, up to 100 animals are adopted per month from this unique rescue facility, which serves as a true refuge for more than 250 animals at any given time.
