Lisa-Anne Marie Furgal

Sixteen-year-old Lisa-Anne Marie Furgal is president and founder of the non-profit organization, YOUTH (Youth Out To Help) located in Pinellas County, FL, which she began in 1995 at age 13. YOUTH’s goal is to educate kids up to age 18 on the importance of volunteerism and to encourage agencies to engage kids creatively and respectfully in service. Lisa’s drive to serve started even before the young age of 13. From ages 8 through 11, she collected over 10,000 baby items and $2,500 for a local agency.

Lisa-Anne has spoken to and inspired hundreds of kids who were not sure how to volunteer. She provides phone counseling to kids who are confused about starting the volunteer process.

She produces the Youth Volunteer Opportunities Guide, which gives tips to kids on volunteering, and lists agencies in Pinellas County that accept youth volunteers. The booklet has been distributed to all 144 Pinellas County Schools and is available at public libraries and other agencies, reaching over 150,000 kids.

Lisa-Anne developed a series of programs to assist YOUTH in accomplishing its goals. The first, YOUTH In The Classroom, is a program where students complete a series of activities culminating in a food collection drive. Currently, 250 students are participating. Each time the program runs, hundreds of placemats are made and items are collected and donated to local agencies. In May 1997, YOUTH sponsored its first annual YOUTH Who Shine Award Ceremony. Four top young volunteer were honored at this dinner. YOUTH In The Community is their newest program. It is similar to the classroom program, but individual kids can complete this one, including those with disabilities. Lisa-Anne recently received a grant for $1,000 to continue the program. YOUTH In The Classroom and YOUTH In The Community are offered locally, regionally and soon, nationally.

Lisa-Anne spends 20 to 25 hours a week during the school year running YOUTH and organizing its estimated 100 young volunteers. During the summer, she spends up to 40 hours a week doing these tasks. She regularly works with the county school board and many agencies, speaking and providing materials to assist with their youth programs. The organization receives its funding through awards and grants that Lisa-Anne applies for and from donations by local businesses and organizations. She has raised more than $4,500 for the operation of YOUTH.

Several people are impacted by the existence of YOUTH. Kids benefit by learning about volunteering at a young age so that they can become life-long givers. Teachers benefit, because they can complete a program, provide recognition and training for their students without needing to do any of the planning. Area non-profit agencies benefit, because they receive young volunteers that have been trained on basic volunteer skills, while learning to improve the way they handle young volunteers. Nursing home residents benefit when they receive the placemats that YOUTH volunteers have made – they love them. Homeless, low-income, disabled and many other community members benefit because YOUTH has encouraged more kids to volunteer.

East Harlem Tutorial

In 1958, Helen Webber began an informal reading group for the children of her neighborhood in her apartment in East Harlem. The program, which began as a simple reading group, has grown to become the East Harlem Tutorial Program for 20 years.

The East Harlem Tutorial Program provides a number of services for the residents of the East Harlem community. The program provides one-on-one tutoring and mentoring to children ages 6 to 18 and counseling for college students. Seminars are provided on topics of concern to teenagers and parent workshops for the parents of the community. The program works to help all children discover and develop their own interests and talents. It also strives to prepare all teenagers for education or employment, encourages all parents to play an active role in their child’s education and supports all members of the community as they strive to reach their full potential.

The East Harlem community where the program resides has very few free, high-quality educational activities that the children can participate after school or during the summer. Students in this area often do not receive individual attention in school, due to the large number of students in each class. In addition, job opportunities for teenagers are often scarce. East Harlem Tutorial attempts to overcome these obstacles by providing scholarships to high schoolers enrolled in the program, providing summer camps, conducting college tours, providing mentors and providing tutors. They also provide offsite mentoring and tutoring for the teenagers in the area.

The program has a large and diverse base of volunteers. Volunteers range in age from 13 to 80, with occupations ranging from plumbers to stock brokers. Student volunteers also come from various racial and socioeconomic backgrounds.

East Harlem Tutorial also serves as a model of excellence for communities, nationwide, who are either starting or are currently running similar programs. These agencies come to East Harlem to observe and learn the techniques of East Harlem Tutorial to take home with them.

The program receives full funding through donations and grants, with 33% coming from individual contributions.

Helen Minarik

For the past 15 years, Helen Minarik has been volunteering at her local community medical center, Memorial Medical Center at South Amboy, NJ. Her total amount of unpaid volunteer hours to date is 8,866 hours.

Mrs. Minarik serves the needs of patients on the acute-care patient floors. She aids nurses by preparing new patient’s records and often takes paperwork home with her to organize it for the nurses.

At Memorial Medical Center she also serves as a mentor to new volunteers and encourages others to help as well. Her son George, who has Down’s Syndrome, and his friends from Easter Seals have volunteered on a regular basis. She still spends about 15 hours a week at the medical center, this not counting the work she takes home.

Louise Balsimo

The Senior Companion Program (SCP), located in Pittsburgh, PA, offers homebound senior citizens companionship and services, linking senior volunteers with seniors in need. The services include escort services to the doctor or a senior citizen center, light shopping, respite care, reading, writing and making phone calls for the clients. All services prevent premature institutionalization. The companionship offered by the program also helps to prevent depression, which often leads to suicide among the elderly. Allegheny County, with the second highest percentage of senior citizens in the United States, is very appreciative of the Senior Companionship Program.

Many of the elderly residing in Allegheny County are homebound and lonely because most, if not all, of their friends and relatives are deceased. Senior Companions are senior citizens who fill in for this loss, providing a new friendship. In Allegheny County, 106 Senior Companion volunteers are brightening the days of 526 lonely seniors. These volunteers bring news of the outside world to the seniors as well as escort them in the community.

Louise Balsimo enrolled as a Senior Companion 11 years ago at the age of 61. She has spent these years being a bright and cheerful friend to the elderly. Not only does she provide her time and warm smile, but she gives attention to the daughter of a legally blind resident. Each day of the week, she visits with a different client for four hours. For her efforts, Ms. Balsimo receives a stipend of $2.55 per hour.

Ms. Balsimo loves to help people and keep them company. In 1997, the Senior Companion Program of Allegheny County awarded her for 10 years of service. She is so loved that she was nominated three times for Senior Companion of the Year in Allegheny County.

At age 72, Ms. Balsimo is still an active member of this program. Always with a smile on her face, she sets a perfect example of how senior citizens can remain active in the community.

The Magnusen Family

The 10 members of the Magnusen family began volunteering as a family more than 13 years ago. They fostered 31 babies, most of which were drug-exposed, and traveled across the country educating the public on the dangers of drugs while pregnant and providing hands-on training about ways to help a baby through drug withdrawals. The family knows this hardship, as the five younger Magnusens, who were all adopted, were all drug-exposed.

Today, the Magnusen family directs their efforts toward keeping babies from being abandoned in dumpsters or alleys. The Magnusens established “Project Cuddle” in 1990 to provide soft toys to police agencies involved in crisis calls dealing with children. In 1996, they expanded the project to include a support program for young mothers in crisis, who are considering abandoning their child as an option. They run a 24-hour, toll-free hotline from their living room and have already saved 74 babies since it began in July 1996. The program provides the mother with resources for help or adoption services. Mothers and babies have been helped in places throughout the nation and the Virgin Islands.

More than 40 volunteers help on the phone lines and more than 200 families in California are ready and willing to rescue a baby and provide support for young mothers, anywhere in the nation, when the need arises. The amount of people willing to be volunteers in their own communities is rapidly growing, meaning more exposure for the program and more help for young mothers. There are more than 1,500 volunteers nationwide. Debbe, alone, spends 70 hours a week working on the hotline and receives no pay.

The hotline, the only one of its kind, and Project Cuddle are funded through private donations. Public Service Announcements have also been donated. There has recently been a large effort to attract more corporate donations.

Merle Hatleberg

Merle Hatleberg, a former nutritionist, started the Some One Cares Soup Kitchen in 1986. She began by feeding 30 people and today her kitchen serves 250-300 men, women and children.

After being forced to move her kitchen twice, Mrs. Hatleberg found a permanent home in an empty Chinese restaurant. The kitchen operates on private donations and fund-raisers. Some local municipalities give community block grants as well.

Mrs. Hatleberg and 60 rotating volunteers keep the soup kitchen open five days a week from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00p.m. Despite being 74 and in a wheelchair, Mrs. Hatleberg drives 40 miles a day to work at her soup kitchen. She receives no monetary reimbursement for her services.

Eugene Botelho

Eagle Pass, TX is the only incorporated community in Maverick County. Spanish is the primary language for 90% of its residents. This small county has a steep school dropout rate and finding tutors is difficult.

In May 1987, Mr. Eugene Botelho was asked to reorganize the Eagle Pass Literacy Council. Before he arrived, the literacy council had only three tutors, none of whom were certified. These three non-certified tutors held English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes two evenings per week for almost 60 Hispanic students. By September of that year, Mr. Botelho had recruited and put to work 12 trained tutors.

Mr. Botelho found it difficult to keep trained tutors. In the summer of 1996, three of the six certified volunteers moved and two advanced students found jobs. Only Mr. Botelho remained to tutor and do office work. Though he is more than 80 years old with cancer, he manages to volunteer more than 200 hours a month to literacy efforts. During 1997, he tutored 2,796 students in individual, group and family unit classes.

Since June 1997, 327 people have applied for class, but only a third of that number can be accommodated. Students range from six to 87 years of age with scholastic backgrounds that range from no formal schooling to professionals with degrees from foreign countries.

Many of his students have gone on to colleges or universities to get their degrees. Former students keep in touch by visiting or writing from other states and countries.

People apply to Mr. Botelho’s program with dreams of a better life and an education that they will cherish and pass on to their children. From Mr. Botelho, they get a dose of encouragement and praise while bettering their reading and writing skills.

Adam Hornstine

Adam Hornstine is a 17-year-old student at Moorestown High School in New Jersey. In 1996, Adam organized a new club named M.A.G.I.C., which stands for Moorestown Alliance for Goodwill and Interest in the Community. The club’s goals include community service to address the needs of the elderly, disabled, and financially unfortunate. Once organized locally, Adam searched for a worthy cause consistent with M.A.G.I.C.’s goals. Since Camden is currently considered to be the “most distressed” municipality in New Jersey by the Office of State Planning, it has become the focal point of the club’s activities.

Adam personally contacted various organizations within Camden. Alliances were made with Christmas in April, the Food Bank of South Jersey, the Empowerment Committee of Camden, Neighborhood Housing Services of Camden, Cooper Landing Civic Association, and Mayor/Council of the City of Camden.

Under Adam’s leadership, M.A.G.I.C. performed renovations on three homes in Camden for two elderly, disabled couples and a single parent with three children. The renovations included painting, trash removal, and landscaping.

During the summer and fall of 1997, Adam wrote to 374 schools in three counties to organize a student food drive for the Food Bank of South Jersey. Approximately 25 schools and an estimated 8,000 students participated. More than 3.0 tons of food was collected to feed 2,450 people.

On Make A Difference Day 1997, M.A.G.I.C. reclaimed a vacant lot in Camden and transformed it into a playground and safe haven for children from the drugs and violence in their neighborhood. M.A.G.I.C. also organized a cleanup and beautification of three surrounding blocks and placed new planters with flowers in front of each home. Over 150 residents and volunteers took part in the project.

Adam has personally raised over $7,500 in grants, donations, and material for these projects. He also donated the money he was awarded as the South Jersey Student of the Year to charity.

Adam’s leadership skills have been acknowledged by Christmas in April. He has served on their Board of Directors and been elected as its secretary for 1997 and 1998. He is the only student on the board. In August 1997, Adam received a national grant from the organization DO SOMTHING for his community service projects. Adam was one of only seven teenagers nationally to receive this prestigious award.

Adam’s organizational abilities have enabled people of all ages and races to work together. Adam’s self-initiated community service and humanitarian efforts make him a role model for youth and citizens of all ages.

Imani House, Inc.

In 1990, when the Imani House was established as a nonprofit organization, Bisi Iderabdullah came back to Brooklyn, NY from Liberia to solicit support for victims of the Liberian Civil War. The plight of the adolescent males in her Brooklyn community, who were lacking the presence of a father in their lives, provoked her to establish Imani House, Inc in 1991. Based in Brooklyn, the program works with the women and children of the community as well as those individuals that come to their food pantry and are in need of assistance. The program works to improve the “quality of life” for its recipients, by providing technology training for youth, English as a Second Language (ESL) for local immigrants and a global resource center for the entire community.

The program, run by a volunteer staff of five people, provides service to the community three days during the week. The organization was recently involved in the Citizen Community Cohesion Program that brought together diverse members of the community to discuss racial issues and build a bridge of understanding among the members of the community.

The program is looking forward to a very promising future. They recently received the Community Advisory Council grant that will fund six full time Vista volunteers. They also hope to begin a literacy program that will focus entirely on the literacy needs of women.

The program is entirely funded by grants and private donations solicited through fundraising.

Kevin Donahoe

In 1994, Kevin Donahoe lost his father, Jim, after a lengthy battle with cancer. To honor his father, Mr. Donahoe began a campaign to spread “pieces of his father’s spirit” across the nation by planting the seeds of his father’s favorite flower, the Four O’Clock, in each state. In doing so, he intends to inform the public of the need for increased cancer research.

To achieve his goal, Mr. Donahoe sent letters of explanation, along with Four O’Clock seeds, to two postmasters in each state. In his letter, he asked the recipient to plant the seeds and then to contact him. He soon began to receive requests for seeds from citizens across the nation.

He followed up his initial letter-writing campaign with one directed at the governor of each state and U.S. Ambassadors across the globe. He has received moving responses and pledges to plant seeds from 100 ambassadors, an impressive array of world leaders, and ultimately First Lady Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore. Today he continues to fulfill requests for Four O’Clock seeds as he methodically picks thousands of the pea-sized seeds from his father’s bushes.

Mr. Donahoe’s service addresses the critical educational and human need for those touched by the disease to volunteer in the fight against it. Volunteer activities include donations of time to help increase public awareness of the disease; preventive health maintenance, and assistance for victims and caregivers; and money to assist needy cancer victims and to support vital research to determine the cause and cure for cancer.

Mr. Donahoe accepts no contributions for his efforts. Instead, he encourages respondents to send donations to the American Cancer Society or other organizations engaged in the fight against cancer.

Through his efforts, Mr. Donahoe has not only increased public awareness of cancer, but he has spearheaded a network of volunteer supporters for local and national cancer groups, and connected people concerned about cancer.

Free Four O’Clock seeds are still available. If anyone wishes to receive the free seeds, they should send a self-addressed stamped envelope to:

Four-O’-Clocks Around The World
P.O. Box 840185
New Orleans, La. 70184-0185