Charmayne Dierker
Mrs. Charmayne Dierker is described as a “magnificent and incredibly caring woman who has devoted her life to helping mothers and daughters all over the world cope with breast cancer.” Dierker was devastated when she learned that her only daughter had breast cancer at the age of 38. She searched for support groups whose purpose was to help mothers cope but to no avail. Dierker, along with her daughter, Lillie Shockney, a breast cancer survivor twice over, founded Mothers Supporting Daughters with Breast Cancer (MSDBC), a national nonprofit organization.
MSDBC was founded in March 1995. The support services provided by this organization are free and are designed to help mothers who have daughters battling with breast cancer. Support is provided in a variety of ways including one-on-one support by mother volunteers who have experienced firsthand the trauma and challenges of having a daughter that is diagnosed with breast cancer. MSDBC also funds the distribution of a mother’s handbook and daughter’s companion brochure to provide guidance as to how mothers can be helpful to their daughters during her treatment. Medical consultation is not provided but MSDBC can answer general questions about the disease and its treatment.
MSDBC provides a forum for mothers to exchange ideas regarding coping mechanisms that have been tried by others and found to be beneficial. They promote open and frank communication between mothers who are jointly experiencing the same painful effects that breast cancer has on a family. They provide a safe, confidential and supportive atmosphere where women can discuss with others who are experiencing similar concerns the difficulties associated with their daughters’ diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. For mothers who are breast cancer survivors themselves, they provide an opportunity to express the guilt-ridden emotions associated with the genetic link and to recall their own personal breast cancer experiences.
MSDBC goals are to provide basic medical information about breast cancer as a disease and the various treatments that patients may receive, to provide a local, regional and national network for mothers and daughters to communicate with and receive support from other mothers and daughters who are also currently experiencing or have experienced the impact that breast cancer has on them as women and as mother and daughter, to receive at designated intervals a newsletter for mother volunteers containing updates about breast cancer research initiatives, innovative treatments, educational programs available about breast cancer, and legislative information about regulations associated with breast care and treatment and to participate whenever possible in local, regional and national efforts to increase breast cancer awareness and promote breast cancer prevention.
Dierker has helped thousands of mothers and daughters in addition to sending free coping materials to those who request it. Additionally, she responds to inquiries for help via e-mail, phone and fax 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Healthy Valley 2000
Healthy Valley 2000 (HV2000) is a grassroots, volunteer-inspired, five-year-old effort to improve health and quality of life by making the community a better place in which to live and work. It covers six towns with a combined population of 96,000, three of which have been designated by the federal government as medically underserved.
One hundred seventy-five volunteer stakeholders representing every community constituency meet quarterly to develop goals, review progress and manage HV2000. There are seven priorities: Arts & Recreation, Community Involvement, Economic Development, Education, Regional Capacity and Youth. The youth focus is on achieving the goals of America’s Promise.
HV2000 is about mobilizing and empowering the community to solve its own problems and building on existing strengths and resources. HV2000 took the America’s Promise call to action seriously and asked business organizations, churches, schools and government leaders to respond by making a commitment to make the community stronger. More than 30 commitments have been received in an ongoing effort. An AmeriCorps America’s Promise Fellow has been awarded to the Valley community.
HV2000 was selected to be one of 16 teaching examples at the Presidents’ Summit for America’s Future, as one of the first hundred Communities of Promise and was spotlighted on the America’s Promise Web site.
HV2000 initiatives include completion of more than 2,220 health assessments of youth and adults, connecting more than 500 people to needed services, development of the Electronic Valley, a community-wide communication and information system using the Internet and created with volunteer and in-kind services, the first annual Valley Pride week with community and neighborhood organization volunteers taking on 10 cleanup or beautification projects, a Youth Leadership Program organized to provide a vehicle by which future community leaders are trained and developed, a Safe Communities Program implemented to ensure safe places and a healthy start for youth and a Youth Yellow Pages pocketsize publication for youth that contains all the youth activities and programs in the community.
Calman Lierberman
Calman Lieberman operates an insurance business where he generally spends 10 hours day. He and his wife, Chavy, are a hard working couple. The parents of 11 children, they dedicate their lives to their family and business. In 1997, Leiberman developed another very important purpose in his life. Lieberman adopted the residents of Aishel Avraham, a residential health facility, as his extended family.
Lieberman mobilized a group of working men and young rabbinical students to devote two hours a week volunteering at Aishel. Among the residents at Aishel Avraham are a large number of Orthodox Jewish people who relate with ease to Yiddish speaking volunteers of similar background. Many are holocaust survivors whose families perished. Now in their loneliness, they can easily converse and confide with the volunteers that Lieberman inspired. Lieberman trains, organizes and inspires the volunteer corps.
At this time, Lieberman is also involved in fund raising for different necessary projects at Aishel. He is running a computer campaign, searching for used computers so that younger residents, who have an interest in doing something involving technology, have means to pursue this field.
Additionally, Lieberman coordinates a Sunday morning music program, complete with two fiddlers, pianist, trumpet player, three singers and Lieberman, armed with his microphone and friends. They sing and dance, making music so lively that the residents say they feel as though they are back at home again.
Harvey Kling
Ten years ago, Harvey Kling retired to Bamberg, SC to play golf. The local Red Cross Chapter was at rock bottom, with a very small bank account, unable to provide required services and with only four active board members. With no prior Red Cross training, Kling left the golf course and offered to get things on track utilizing his executive business training and experience from working with other charitable organizations.
Kling attended numerous seminars and workshops, which included leadership courses in training areas provided by the Red Cross, such as disaster, health & safety, HIV/AIDS prevention, military casework, community service delivery and human resources. He reorganized the Board of Directors, adding members with expertise in advertising, law disaster emergencies, the medical field and a State Representative, to fill out an 18-member board. Currently, there is a waiting list for board membership.
Since the schools serve as primary shelter areas, Kling provided training for more than 200 schoolteachers, principals and administrators in sheltering procedures. Additionally, the Red Cross, under his leadership, has assisted numerous families in single family disasters and held countless blood drives, CPR trainings, disaster briefings and disaster trainings/workshops. Kling has served in different capacities with the chapter, including Board Chairman and Charter Member to the South Carolina State Council of the Red Cross.
Kling is also actively involved with the local Lions Club, Bamberg Job Corps, Community Relations Board, Masons and the Old Friends Annual Golf Tournament, which provides a $1,500 scholarship each year to a local high school senior.
“Kling is ready to provide community service wherever or whenever needed,” remarked Emma Dowling, Chairperson, Blood Program, Bamberg Red Cross, “If there is a need, he will be there.”
The PARK Program Rangers
The PARK Program Rangers is a program that motivates and rewards youth that help maintain renovated parks in their community. Participants work to preserve the 33 Detroit parks, renovated through the PARK program, a $12 million collaborative project which includes The Pistons-Palace Foundation, the City of Detroit and several area foundations and businesses. The goal of the program is to provide kids with safe, clean and fun places to play.
Rangers, who are between the ages of five and 18, are gathered from schools, churches and recreation centers. They ensure that parks are kept clean and safe for other children and their families by cleaning parks twice monthly from May through November. During fall and winter months, they rake leaves and shovel snow for senior citizens in their community. To date, there are 33 Ranger groups (one for each park) with a combined total of more than 700 participants. Each group has at least two adult supervisors who oversee clean-ups, meetings and projects.
Rangers meet monthly to address community issues, plan activities and do homework. Each group must also plan community service projects. One Ranger group hosted a poetry contest for Black History Month, during which they pledged to continue working together to improve their communities and the lives of others. Another Ranger group conducted a ‘fun day’ to provide fun and safe activities for neighborhood children. Activities included flag football, relay races, volleyball, basketball and double-dutch jump roping. Other Ranger groups hold fundraisers, canned goods and clothing drives for needy families.
For their commitment to The PARK Program, Rangers are often rewarded with tickets to Detroit Pistons basketball games, PARK Program and Pistons merchandise and visits from Pistons players.
Domino’s Pizza, Inc. is the sponsor of The PARK Program Rangers. As a committed sponsor, Domino’s provides pizza for meetings, employment opportunities for the Rangers and trips to Domino’s Farm. Additionally, Domino’s employees volunteer their time to assist the Rangers with park clean-ups.
Mesa High School S.H.OUT! Club (Students Helping Out!)
Since September 1994, Mesa High School students have loaded up their vehicles with yard and painting equipment and headed out into the neighborhoods of their city in order to assist the elderly and disabled who are no longer able to take care of their yards and homes. Students Helping Out! (S.H.OUT!) is a school club that reaches beyond the school walls into the streets, alleys and backyards of those who need a helping hand. Teenagers cut weeds, mow grass, trim trees, paint sheds, haul away debris and tidy up yards and streets throughout the city, nearly every week.
Two to four times per month between five and twelve students change their clothes after school and head out for three or more hours of service to their community. The groups meets the needs of many senior and disabled citizens by doing for those them what they can neither do for themselves nor afford to pay others to do. Referrals to S.H.OUT! come from newspaper notices, the City of Mesa, the Mesa Senior center and other local charitable organizations. Once in a while, the help provided is a one-shot deal. More often, S.H.OUT! makes a friend for life and continues to maintain the premises of its elderly friend.
S.H.OUT! began the fall of 1994, after the new school club received two mini-grants to purchase the lawnmowers, weed eaters, rakes, shovels, painting equipment, work gloves and garbage bags that are needed to perform these services. Further funding has helped the group maintain and expand its inventory. During the last three and a half years, many school and church youth groups, Eagle Scouts, and summer programs have borrowed the equipment. In this way, many other volunteers have been able to perform neighborhood clean-ups and yard work for the elderly as well as create school and community gardens.
Each school year, a new core of 20 Mesa High students meet weekly to respond to phone requests for help, maintain the equipment, plan work days and perform physical labor. Three to eight yards are groomed every month: four or more neighborhoods are cleaned a year. Additionally, hundreds of other students serve their community when they borrow S.H.OUT! equipment.
James Pohlman
The Library of Congress Talking Books provides recorded cassettes and players free of charge to the elderly, homebound and those with special needs, particularly the blind, visually impaired and reading disabled. James Pohlman’s more than 600 hours of service repairing tapes and machines, narrating and shelving books have enhanced services to approximately 2,000 individuals.
The books on tape are circulated by mail, the incoming and outgoing mail averaging 400 boxes of recorded books per day. As part of the check-in process, each talking book is checked for defects. Needless to say, each day’s mail brings some broken, twisted, missing or defective tapes. Before Pohlman assumed responsibility, there was a backlog of defective tapes due to lack of staff available to perform such tasks. Pohlman imposed some order on the process, which enables staff to keep popular titles in circulation.
After getting the defective tape problem under control, Pohlman found that he had time to become involved in the repair of these cassette players. The talking books are played on cassette players issued by the Library of Congress, which are then loaned to patrons. When a problem arises with a cassette player, the patron returns it to the library. Damaged players must consistently be repaired and reissued, which is a major part of Pohlman’s responsibilities.
Pohlman also narrates a newsletter published four times a year by the Access Services Department. This publication is made available in large print, Braille and cassette for blind patrons. Pohlman assists with the duplication of these tapes. In these and many other ways, James Pohlman shows his dedication to the Library of Congress and the services that it provides to disabled library patrons.
Shirley Martin
Shirley Martin’s work with the Foster Grandparent Program provides meaningful volunteer tutorial opportunities for senior citizens who work with students that are reading below grade level in southeastern Arkansas schools. The program was born out of Martin’s vision of Foster Grandparents serving at-risk students as reading tutors. Many of the students served by the Foster Grandparents are from single families and minority communities. Assessment results in school districts show that the vast number of students are reading below grade level and indicate the great need for this service.
In the fall of 1997, 16 Grandparents began serving as reading tutors in four area elementary schools. These 16 Grandparents worked with 64 students who had tested in the lowest 25th percentile on the Stanford 9, a norm-based national test. Martin formed a partnership with the Arkansas State Department of Education, Great Rivers Vocational School in McGehee and University of Arkansas at Little Rock to provide training to the volunteers.
Classroom teacher evaluations, conducted in January 1998, reported that all the children were reading with more confidence after just a few months with the Foster Grandparents. Post-testing in the spring of 1998, showed significant increases in six skills—letter recognition, word testing, concepts about print, writing vocabulary, hearing sounds in words and text reading. The students, all ages 6-8, improved their reading scores by an average of one grade level. One 8-year-old moved from the “readiness” level to a third-grade level of reading.
The Foster Grandparents receive training in tutoring techniques, care giving and helping children stay on task. A literacy plan was developed for each student that sets goals for reading improvement. The Foster Grandparents give energy and enthusiasm to students who have been faced with reading difficulties. Based upon the results achieved in the 97-98 school year, Shirley Martin has expanded the reading program to include 100 Foster Grandparents, ages 60-85, for the current school year. These tutors serve 16 sites in 13 school districts.
Gerald Kolski
Gerald Kolski, MD, Ph.D. has been a volunteer of the American Lung Association since 1983. As head of pediatrics for Crozer-Chester, his area of interest is servicing the needs of children. A successful program run annually at the American Lung Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania is a residential camp for asthmatic children ages 8-12 called Camp Superstuff. For the last three years, Dr. Kolski has been camp medical director and the camp’s devoted physician.
Dr. Kolski closes his allergy practice in order to work as a camp physician for the four days of camp. Since camp involves a great deal of preparation, he serves year round on a planning committee. At camp, he is on call 24 hours to take care of the children’s medical needs. Dr. Kolski is committed to teaching the children proper skills to manage their condition.
Each year, more than 50 children pass through this camp, learning how to take care of their asthma. Dr. Kolski is attentive to each child’s medical regimen and is readily available in cases of emergency. He works as part of a dynamic team of medical professionals and is always willing to take the time to explain things to his staff.
The success of Camp Superstuff relies upon the dedication and professionalism of the volunteers working under the guidance of a strong medical director. As a member of several professional organizations, Dr. Kolski’s contacts in the community have been extremely valuable to recruiting qualified volunteers to medically staff the camp.
Dr. Kolski’s continued interest in children with respiratory problems has inspired a new program for the American Lung Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania. Seeing a need to help children continue to successfully manage and cope with their asthma, Teens with Asthma Really Get Exercise Tough (T.A.R.G.E.T.) was developed for teenage asthmatics. In conjunction with a sports club and inspired by Dr. Kolski’s belief in conditioning the asthmatic, this program combines education and fitness into a complete package, inspired by Dr. Kolski’s belief in conditioning the asthmatic. He has spent the last year working with another committee in the planning, implementing and evaluation of T.A.R.G.E.T. Over the course of this year, he has conducted an in-service program for school coaches, teachers and nurses and has been active in teaching for the teen program.
East Carolina University’s Tillery Learn and Serve Project
Tillery is a small, isolated, rural North Carolina community. Citizens of the community are primarily elderly (60%), African-American (98%) and live in poverty (90%). Tillery was developed as a resettlement agricultural community as part of the New Deal of the Great Depression. Tillery remains a rural area that lacks health practitioners; the nearest health care facility is 20 miles away.
East Carolina University (ECU) is located approximately one hour from Tillery. Since 1987, the ECU School of Medicine has conducted a one-day-per-month free medical clinic in Tillery, staffed by volunteer medical students and faculty. In 1995, a Learn and Serve America grant facilitated the expansion of volunteer health services to include Environmental Health, Exercise and Sport Science, Health Education, Medicine, Nursing, Nutrition, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy and Recreation and Leisure Studies. Thus, the Tillery Learn and Serve Project came into existence. The partnership of ECU and Tillery has been quite successful for all involved. Students have gained valuable experience while the citizens of Tillery have received quality health services.
One aspect of the ECU-Tillery partnership is that valuable health services are provided at no cost to recipients. For example, a team of ECU health education students went door to door in the community to conduct a health assessment. The results revealed that citizens suffered from various health problems and were at risk for many more. Under faculty supervision, the students now provide in-home Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy and recreation services. Nutrition services are being added, as well as visits from student nurses.
A tele-machine project allows select homebound residents to have a computer, video camera and telephone modem in the home, whereby, they can maintain contact (using images and sound) with a volunteer service provider. A cardiopulmonary assessment project offers heart and lung screening to community members. A model fitness program is now offered weekly in the community center. Recreation and Leisure Studies students built a walking trail and organized a community family day, Environmental Health students performed preliminary ground water testing, and Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy students made changes in homes to accommodate elderly residents with limitations (handrails, hand-held showers, ramps, etc.).
The cooperative partnership between the students and faculty of ECU and the concerned citizens of Tillery has enabled a variety of health services to be administered to Tillery residents. It is described as a win-win situation based upon efforts to address the unmet health needs of the Tillery community.
