Peggy Benz of the Village of Johnson City, New York has waged a one-woman war on urban blight in conjunction with a concentrated effort on building a strong, safe, and healthy community.
Benz is a founding member of the Johnson City Neighborhood Project. She has initiated several neighborhood clean-ups and formed groups to address the specific issues related to property maintenance as well as public safety.
Additionally, Benz has enhanced the Village of Johnson City aesthetically by planting and nurturing her own gardens as well as guiding gardening groups at the local library and several parks in her community. She has spent countless hours teaching gardening techniques to the youth at her local children’s center.
Jessica Vance
Jessica Vance of Blacksburg, Virginia started a service project at 11-years-old in the sixth grade as part of a school homework project. For her service project, Vance decided to crochet preemie and newborn baby hats, booties, and blankets for local hospitals to distribute to mothers in need. Vance found the service project such an enjoyable and heartwarming experience that she decided to continue it, and thus founded One Square at a Time.
Now a high school senior, Vance’s organization, One Square at a Time, has provided more than 3,000 baby hat and bootie sets, 616 baby blankets, 12 baby sacks, 178 newborn sweaters, 318 newborn clothing items, 12 lapghans, 14 stoma covers, five Hokie Healing blankets, 117 preemie blankets, 283 preemie hat and bootie sets, four preemie diaper sets, 31 preemie gowns, five baby capes/ponchos, 67 crocheted toys, 56 baby bibs, 10 crocheted Christmas stockings, 21 teen/tween hats, and the numbers continue to grow each day.
One Square at a Time provides these baby items to hospitals, resource centers, and Indian reservations across the country, as well as in many countries around the world.
Kaye Foltz
Kaye Foltz recognized a need at Carlyle Place going unfulfilled. Therefore, she worked with the organization to create a volunteer opportunity providing services to older adults.
In 2012, Foltz approached the staff at Carlyle Place, a not-for-profit Continuous Care Retirement Community, seeking volunteer opportunities because she was soon to retire. Soon after her service began at the community, Foltz discovered the residents needed assistance in their weekly shopping trips. The staff at the community was unaware there was such a need for this particular service within their residential facility.
Foltz created a volunteer opportunity at the senior community to meet this need. Foltz has made it her main commitment at the facility to accompany residents to the grocery store each week, help them locate the items they need, and assist them with their bags, ultimately making it possible for residents to continue to be engaged in their surrounding community.
Some of the residents were asked what her service means to them the following are their response:
“She is so nice and helpful”
“She is very accommodating and very helpful.”
“When I go to Wal-Mart Kaye goes out of her way to help me find the items or just go and get them for me which saves time and lets me continue shopping.”
“She’s one of the greatest things I’ve encountered since I moved in to Carlyle Place. She is so helpful and willing to do anything. Having been a volunteer myself for over 20 years – I know a good one when I see one. She is just good and she reminds me of myself.”
“She is very faithful & caring person. She makes sure that we each find what we need, even if she has to walk all over the store and come back to tell us. She’s happy, she smiles a lot, and has a real compassion for us. She is a fun person. Works well with our driver Leslie. We know when Kaye comes out the door the bus will soon be here.”
“She’s great – I am vision impaired and she always available when I need help at the store when I need assistance to find what I want. She’s great about that…Not only is she a good helper – she’s so cheerful, she always wears bright clothes and you can’t help but smile when you see her.”
“I’m delighted that Kaye Foltz has received this award, she is resourceful, energetic, and extremely cheerful. She helps us off the bus and due to my vision problems she helps me in the store to find what I need. She is an indispensable part of the Carlyle Community.”
Mary Craft
Mary Craft joined Save-Us-Now, Inc. in December 2012 as a volunteer. A group of concerned friends came together to form Save-Us-Now to assist individuals who need services beyond what traditional human services and community organizations can provide.
As a volunteer for Save-Us-Now, Craft has been instrumental in event planning and fundraising for programs assisting individuals in crises including the organization’s annual spring brunch. Craft works tirelessly with the organization by visiting local businesses, banks, and shelters securing partnership opportunities and program participants in Washington, DC's Anacostia neighborhood. As a result, Craft’s efforts have increased program participation and partnerships tremendously.
Additionally, Craft has been a dedicated volunteer at the pregnancy center in her community for more than 12 years where she works with young women and provides assistance in determining what decisions to make for their futures.
Nikephoros Argeroplos
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Nikephoros saw a need in his community and did something to make a difference. Instead of just thinking about it, he took action. As a result, he has given more than 200 underprivileged children a reason to smile.
At 15 years old, Nikephoros Argeroplos and his sister Vasiliki Argeroplos co-founded Okay To Play, a non-profit organization supporting orphans and foster children’s emotional and physical well-being through play. Through Okay To Play, Nikephoros and his sister collect old electronic equipment to raise money to help underserved children while at the same time helping the environment by keeping the devices out of landfills.
With the money raised, Nikephoros purchases new toys, books, and sporting equipment for orphans and foster children. Thus far, he has helped more than 200 children locally and internationally. Additionally, Okay To Play has expanded to six states and enlisted ten other youth leaders to help cover the larger area.
Now 18 years old, Nikephoros has raised over $20,000 in funding by being determined in finding creative ways to raise money. He is truly on the right path in helping others and making a difference in the world.
Vanessa Tyus
Homeless advocate Vanessa Tyus relocated back to her hometown, Jacksonville, Ill., to help her community tackle its homeless situation by setting up a shelter.
Shortly after arriving in Jacksonville, Tyus began researching the homeless population in her community and helping place individuals in short-term housing while she worked tirelessly to get the shelter up and running for the community.
On one occasion, Tyus had been working with a homeless man throughout the day to locate food and short-term housing. Upon returning home from assisting the man, Tyus discovered her home had caught fire, and in just minutes she was homeless herself.
Tyus recovered from the incident and her passion for homeless advocacy continues. She has dedicated her life to providing relief, compassion and hope to homeless men, women and families. Additionally, Tyus operates the Missions department at her local church serving the homeless population with vouchers for food, clothing, hotel, gasoline, and water and electric bills.
Sandy Lor
Mentoring means a great deal to Sandy Lor, a junior at Simmons College. It is because of her great mentors that she got the inspiration to create a mentoring program in conjunction with the Gateway tutoring program.
“I can honestly say that without my mentors in my life, I wouldn't be able to achieve all that I have today.” Lor wrote in a recent Simmons blog post.
Gateway was originally developed as a pilot program to provide high school students with after-school tutoring assistance. In 2011, Lor worked with the Gateway Team to develop a proposal and secure funds to implement a mentoring program to benefit the students of John O' Bryant High School in Roxbury, Massachusetts. In addition to tutoring, students now receive mentoring, which has helped bring hope and expectations to the students who really need guidance and role models.
Michael Haynes
To many in Binghamton and Johnson City, N.Y., Michael Haynes is known simply as “Chef Michael.”
Michael Haynes, right, helps prepare a
buffet-style meal.
The former professional chef has cooked free, weekly meals for more than a decade as a volunteer at two local United Methodist churches. His healthy dinner creations typically feed around 160 people, and the buffet-style events are open to anyone.
“Our goal is to feed anyone who is hungry,” says Haynes. “Some of our guests are homeless, but we don’t ask. We also have regulars who are local families. We don’t know if they have million-dollar homes or live under a bridge: They’re all welcome at our dinners.”
Each Tuesday, Haynes cooks for The Lord’s Table project at Sarah Jane Johnson United Methodist Church in Johnson City. On Saturdays, he prepares the Saturday Night Alive dinner at Boulevard UMC in Binghamton, and he cooks a monthly dinner hosted by Boulevard UMC for local college students.
Haynes is partly disabled due to a back condition and arthritis and can no longer work full time, but he’s determined to continue his role as Chef Michael at the churches.
“There is such a need out there,” says Haynes. “It’s not just about hunger, but nutrition in general. Too many people can’t afford to buy healthy food for a family of five. It’s cheaper to go out for fast food. It gives me a good feeling in my heart to be able to help in a small way.”
Haynes and fellow volunteers like to tell of the time he experienced a “kitchen miracle.” He says he was fixing chicken and biscuits at Boulevard one night, and planning for about 160 people. Suddenly the pastor came into the kitchen, looking panicked, and said that 200 people had shown up.
“I didn’t know what to do, so I just kept cooking and cooking, and I realized I was cooking more than I’d planned,” Haynes recalls. “The ingredients seemed like they were just appearing from nowhere. At the end of the night, I learned that we’d fed 228 people. I always say, ‘It doesn’t compare with the loaves and fishes, but I did come through with the chicken and biscuits.’”
Kathy Eldon
Today, we celebrate the 95th birthday of Nelson Mandela, and Nelson Mandela Day. Like President George H. W. Bush, Mandela has worked to promote and support the capacity of the individual to effect positive change in service to others. At MandelaDay.com, volunteer activities and events demonstrate the global movement for good. Mandela’s grandsons, Ndaba and Kweku, join with President Bush and Points of Light in honoring Kathy Eldon, co-founder of Creative Visions Foundation, as winner of today’s Daily Point of Light Award for her work in Africa and around the world. Read her story below.
As a 16-year-old exchange student living in apartheid-era South Africa, Kathy Eldon experienced the tensions of the time and saw what social injustice looked like.
The Iowa native’s host family was related to Bram Fischer, the anti-apartheid activist who led Nelson Mandela’s legal team during the trial that resulted in Mandela’s life prison sentence. Eldon, who stayed with the family in 1963, came to look upon Fischer as one of her first inspirations for doing good in the world.
In the late 1970s, Eldon returned to Africa, moving from England with her husband and two children to Kenya. There, as a journalist, she witnessed courageous social activism in action. Her son, Dan, who followed her into journalism, would ultimately, tragically die in Africa at age 22 – beaten to death by an angry mob in Somalia while on assignment as a Reuters photographer.
Dan’s death in 1993 inspired Eldon and her daughter, Amy, to found the Creative Visions Foundation. Since its creation in 1998, the Malibu, Calif.-based foundation has helped “creative activists” – people who use the media and arts to effect social change – raise $11.2 million for more than 150 projects on five continents, reaching audiences of more than 90 million worldwide.
“After Dan’s death, we learned that he had kept several journals detailing his commitment to social activism,” says Eldon. “His journals became the basis for three books, and I later learned that his story had served as an inspiration to the activist founders of Invisible Children and TOMS Shoes.”
Eldon began to see a pattern of inspiration. When Dan was a child, he met the courageous Kenyan journalists who worked with Eldon. Later, he heard Bishop Desmond Tutu speak in South Africa and became inspired by the life of Nelson Mandela. When Dan’s journals were published, his own activist spark inspired others, including Eldon. In fact, she is now working with Mandela’s family on a project aimed at inspiring and empowering young people.
“I think Creative Visions is part of an endless process of sparks that ignite creative activism,” says Eldon, an award-winning filmmaker and producer. “We act as an incubator, academy and an agency for creative activists: storytellers using art, music, dance, drama and film to create awareness and ignite positive social action.”
Eldon’s foundation teaches the artists about the basics of fundraising and guides them to funding sources. But most importantly, Eldon adds, the foundation brings those artists together in a nurturing, collaborative environment. Among the projects the foundation has supported: the construction of a school for 50 orphans in a rural African village; a DJ studio arts program for teenagers recovering from substance abuse; and yoga classes for hundreds of homeless people.
Ray Blanchard
When construction began on the San Carlos Community Garden in San Diego, Calif., in March 2012, retired Navy and federal employee Ray Blanchard was one of the first to volunteer his services. Since then, Blanchard has donated more than 1,000 hours of time – both constructing the raised garden plots and working to solicit donations and other assistance from local businesses, religious groups and community organizations.
Blanchard is credited with building most of the completed garden beds, and thanks to his efforts and those of other volunteers, the project is already more than half completed. Located on the campus of Springall Academy, a K-12 school specializing in special needs students, the San Carlos Community Garden has a unique dual mission: It both provides rental garden plots to community residents and serves as an outdoor classroom where Springall students can learn gardening skills and cultivate food served at the school.
“I was excited about this idea from the moment I read over the plans,” says Blanchard. “Nothing had been done with that land for years, and now it’s both a functioning garden for the neighborhood and a place where these kids can learn everything about the food-growing process. Kids just think of vegetables as something from the supermarket, but these students are planting and growing – and collecting the harvest for use in real meals.”
The Community Garden currently has fruit trees and more than 50 functioning plots used by individuals, the school or organizations. The completed garden will not only include many more growing beds, but also a small amphitheater that groups can use for instruction and presentations. Blanchard, who volunteers 20 to 25 hours a week, says he is still as enthusiastic as he was when they first broke ground.
“This has been very gratifying,” says Blanchard. “I loved the design, and I’ve been amazed at how quickly the community has wholeheartedly embraced the project. … I’m delighted to be a part of it, and I can’t wait to see all the work come to fruition.”
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