MICHELLE MORAND & KELSEY GRAHAM

Michelle and Kelsey Graham are members of Future, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA). They used their connections in FCCLLA to help out their community. The girls decided to focus their efforts on the needy in their community. They did research to find out what was most needed that they would be able to raise or get donations for. The Grahams decided to hold aclothing and blanket drive. They were able to advertise at Three Rivers Middle School where they attend so other students could also bring in clothes and blankets. This endeavor resulted in more than 500 items contributed to the needy. Mrs. Smith, the FCCLA leader, took the items down to the drop-in center so they could be distributed.

The girls’ next endeavor was Tricycle Races. Children in their school had collections jars in each of their homerooms. The top 12 homerooms that had the most money got to see their respective teachers ride tricycles. The proceeds from this fundraiser went to the Leukemia Foundation. A student at the schooll has leukemia, and some of the money collected went towards her treatment and needs. The money from the other race went to purchase animals for poor families in Afghanistan. In the second race, approximately $15,000 was raised. They were able to buy two dairy cows, four rabbits, two camels and four goats.

The girls also went carolling to three local nursing homes: Riverview, Miami Newhaven and Three Rivers Nursing Homes. They split up into groups and went into the rooms where they were allowed to and sang to the seniors. The residents looked forward to the visits and some of them even sang along with the girls.

Michelle and Kelsey also participated in Crosstown Help Out. They reported to serve at 7am on a Saturday and worked for one of several participating locations in town. They chose Our Daily Bread, which is a walk-in center in downtown Cincinnati. They painted and cleaned the floors and walls until 2:30 in the afternoon.

Michelle and Kelsey have done this for the past two years and plan on continuing this as an ongoing project. The girls have also participated in Rally, where they go before judges and tell them about certain things you did in FCCLA. They have participated in Rally for two years and are planning to again next year. Their group made it to Nationals for the last Rally and flew to Philadelphia on July 4th. They scored a 99.3 at regional rally and at state they received a 100.

MARGARET PIPER

Having always lived in Brock, Nebraska, Margaret Piper has strong roots and great care for the people. Brock, a town of less than 200, does not offer many constructive things for children to do, leaving a gap of activities between school and the arrival of parents home from work. Seven years ago, Ms. Piper saw this deficit and took action. She developed an outstanding youth diversion Kid’s Club for kids ages 5 through 14 to help build assets and character in the children. Blending these age groups together regularly is demanding, but she and her helpers have given these youth something challenging, creative and worthwhile to do with their time and energy.

Ms. Piper and her Kid’s Club developed a community garden from a weedy village lot and everyone diligently works their own space throughout the spring with vegetables to eat and sell. Ms. Piper has written several grants to support the project and has support from community members who have seen their community transformed.

As well as gardening with the Kid’s Club, Ms. Piper can be found leading meetings of her local 4-H Club, the Brock 4-H Huskers. She has been a 4-H club leader for the past 52 years. After September 11th, members of the 4-H Club voiced their concern for victims of the terrorist attacks and wanted to do their part in supporting their country. Ms. Piper and the club organized a bike-a-thon to raise money to send to the American Red Cross Salvation Army. The tireless members made pledge sheets, appointed committees and went door-to-door to find supporters. Two weeks later, 30 kids met and rode for a total of 450 miles to raise more than $1,000 to send to the two charities. These numbers are even greater considering the size of the town.

Change has been noted in the youth as Ms. Piper tirelessly uses Character Counts! To give them a feeling of being responsible, trustworthy, fair, caring, respectful and good citizens learning right from wrong. Kid’s Club is also impacting parents who are becoming more involved in their children’s lives by attending plays, programs, and meals.

Ms. Piper continuously works with youth to help them finish their 4-H records so they can gain pride in finishing what they began while also being rewarded for their hard work at the 4-H Achievement Night Celebration with scholarships to camps and other educational events. She has earned a place in the hearts of all she serves by instilling a positive vision for the future.

MARGIT SZVOBODA

Margit Szvoboda lives and volunteers her time and efforts at the Lake Wales Care Center in Lake Wales, Florida. After the death of her husband, Ms. Szvoboda sought to find meaningful work as a way to make use of her time and give back to her community. Through a friend, she learned of the Lake Wales Care Center. It is a private nonprofit Christian social service agency that seeks to provide meaningful solutions to life problems while empowering individuals and families practically, spiritually, emotionally and relationally.

The Lake Wales community has a significant need for basic needs services to be provided to individuals or families experiencing emergency situations. Ms. Szvoboda has a direct hand in distributing food, clothing, furniture, lodging, gas, prescriptions, medical equipment and rent/ utility payments by maintaining financial and demographic records for the casework staff. Her specific areas of responsibility include compilations of weekly, monthly and annual service reports, computer data entry of all client services, file maintenance and bookkeeping for a service related funding source. Without the proper maintenance of these records, services could not be provided in a timely manner, if at all. Ms. Szvoboda’s 12 to 15 hours of volunteer service each week save the agency a least $575 monthly in salaries. As a result of her work, those dollars can be put to direct client service expenditures, impacting families significantly.

Ms. Szvoboda’s work serves many. She works with fringe-income families or the “working poor,” individuals with drug or alcohol addictions, unwed pregnant teenagers, those without the typical informal resources of family and friends and those generally disenfranchised for one reason or the other. Ms. Szvoboda’s efforts ensure accountability to donors with accurate reports and maintenance of confidentiality.

Ms. Szvoboda also has an ongoing relationship and involvement with Care Center and its clients. She worked there 12 years as a non-paid staff member and then continued with 7,200 hours of volunteer service of the next 3 ½ years. She continued to work weekly during her regular office hours, and the impact that this time has on clients is felt, again, because they can direct those dollars they saved from paying her towards client services. In addition, Ms. Szvoboda’s record keeping and networking with the United Way reduces duplication of services in the area and helps to leverage dollars in an effort to provide more services for client groups.

Ms. Szvoboda is dedicated to help others in her community. This is evident through her volunteer work with various agencies. She is consistent, compassionate and is always looking to help someone in need.

KAREN RYAN

Serving is nothing new for Karene Ryan. She has a long history of using her talents and skills to benefit children in Washington County Nebraska. In June of 2001, Ryan answered yet another call to service when she agreed to provide leadership to a new project being launched in the county.

An incentive program modeled after the March of Dime’s Storks Nests, the purpose of the Building Blocks Boutique is to enhance birth outcomes. To encourage families to adopt lifestyles behaviors which will result in healthy babies, the Boutique stocks baby goods and provides them as tangible rewards to families who earn points by routinely attending pre-natal and well-baby checks, securing immunizations, using car seats or attending classes to enhance their parenting skills and earning capacity.

While the idea for the Boutique came from a group of professionals in the community, it was clear that the program could not succeed without the support of the community. Ms. Ryan stepped up to the plate. She has done the legwork to get the project off the ground, and she has been the backbone that has sustained the effort. Although she is currently employed outside the home, Ms. Ryan devotes her energies to the Boutique as if it were her full-time job. Her innovative management styles has been indispensable in developing a program that is both responsive to clientele needs while being operated entirely by volunteers on a tight budget.

Ms. Ryan began her efforts by manning a booth at local WIC clinics to recruit participants to the program. As volunteer coordinator for the Boutique, she currently recruits and trains volunteers, manages inventory, makes decisions about program administration, follows up on client requests and communicates clientele needs to board members and to the general public. As strong advocate for the Boutique, Ms. Ryan also actively solicits donations needed to sustain the program.

Aside from her management skills, Ms. Ryan’s most important contribution is her role as a liaison linking young families to programs and services in the community. Because of her years of professional experience as a medical assistant in the family practice and OB/GYN clinics as well as her experiences operating a childcare facility, she is intimately familiar with the issues facing young families today. This awareness is complemented by her tremendous knowledge of resources available in the community to meet those needs.

Although Ms. Ryan is an introvert, she makes it her special duty to volunteer and help others. The leadership she has provided to the Building Blocks Boutique is especially exemplary. Her dedicated service has made it possible to provide a positive, life-changing experience that is making a difference to many young families in Washington County. In just 16 short months, she has single-handedly taken the program from conceptual stages to a program that provides reliable service on a regular basis. The program is open twice each month and currently has an excess of 100 families enrolled.

JIM KURLEY

Life does not always turn out the way we plan it. Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) member Jim Kurley found that out in the 1990’s. He had spent a lifetime as a printer in a Polish section of Chicago. In retirement, Mr. Kurley had other plans. Sitting in the New Mexico sunshine was not what he and his wife had expected it to be. They sold their home and chose to move to Champaign, Illinois. After moving, Mrs. Kurley became ill and passed away three months later. Mr. Kurley had been visiting at the hospital and soon after became a full-fledge volunteer.

Mr. Kurley was introduced to RSVP in Champaign, which opened up hundreds of potential opportunities for him. At this point, he was having a difficult time. He had long felt a kinship with those who fought the daily battles of survival in shelters and soup kitchens and began to volunteer to serve them. He was also a dedicated member of his Catholic Church.

Mr. Kurley has been dedicated to the Catholic Worker House, a daily soup kitchen in downtown Champaign. When it closed for the summer a couple of years ago to be remodeled and updated, he was concerned. He continued to pick up contributions of groceries, cooked meals and pastries and took these donations to local shelters. Mr. Kurley spent this time serving the shelter for Women In Transition, the TIMES Center – a men’s homeless shelter, the Crisis Nursery and A Woman’s Place – a domestic violence shelter.

In addition to serving these organizations, Mr. Kurley also continued to work weekly at Provena Covenant. He also contacted his grandson’s elementary school and began to volunteer there in the cafeteria. Though his grandson has been promoted, Mr. Kurley is still volunteering there.

Mr. Kurley uses service as a way to keep himself mentally and physically in shape. This past year, he was honored for contributing more than 13,000 hours of service in just six years. Though he is not a native of Champaign, few will ever demonstrate a greater impact in the area.

NEIGHBORS ASSISTING NEIGHBORS

Neighbors Assisting Neighbors (NAN) is the next generation of existing Neighborhood Watch programs. It is a community-building model that works in any community. It was developed by a group of citizens who participated in The Neighborhood Watch Program sponsored by the St. Louis County Police Department in St. Louis, Missouri. These volunteers wanted to take Neighborhood Watch to a level where neighbors not only watched out for one another, but they also interacted with each other through community service. No one at NAN is salaried or receives a stipend.

In July 2000, volunteers started working on service projects in their neighborhoods; thus NAN was born. The very first project was taking a swimming pool apart and then having a scrap hauler pick up the metal pieces. This was done in one day.

NAN recruits volunteers from all walks of life. Volunteers are all ages and include senior citizens, church groups, high school and college students, and other caring people. Debbie Kricensky is the President of NAN. She has been the backbone of the organization since the beginning. She coordinates all projects, getting the volunteers, tools and making the phone calls that are necessary to perform the project. She also keeps lists of all these resources because similar projects arise and they are needed again. Ms. Kricensky has a caring and “wanting to help” attitude that comes across to all the people she meets on every project.

NAN offers help to organize and perform work projects for individuals and communities. NAN emphasizes work projects in low to median income areas of St. Louis County. Many NAN projects target neighborhood cleanups. The entry of the mosquito-borne West Nile Virus into St. Louis County in 2002 created a natural focus for NAN to eliminate mosquito-breeding sites through cleanup projects. In September 2002, NAN began discussions about waste tire and bulk cleanups with Mid-County Partners for Progress (MCPP), a nonprofit that represents the interests of the Mid-St. Louis area.

NAN worked cooperatively with MCPP. Funding for this project was available from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources Waste Tire Cleanup Program (DNR). Surveys of some of the communities represented by MCPP revealed illegal waste tire dumps sited with 25 to 1,600 tires. NAN submitted and was approved by DNR to receive reimbursement grants to cover the cost of waste tire removal in the 24 communities represented by MCPP. Coverage of the NAN Waste Tire Project by the news media has attracted the interest of other St. Louis County communities and additional DNR grants have been approved and projects scheduled.

HANNAH KOOTZ

Hannah Kootz is a sixteen-year-old girl who lives in Warwick, Massachusetts. This area, knows as the North Quabbin, has one of the highest assault rates for any place of comparable size in the state. Hannah is deeply concerned about violence and prejudice, which is what brought her to join Talking on the Edge, a program under the care of Quabbin Mediation. In this program, teens learn conflict resolution skills. They identify behaviors that escalate and those which de-escalate conflict. Then they create workshops to teach these skills to others. Workshops have been presented to adults, teens, and elementary school children.

Hannah has been a member of Talking on the Edge for three years. Not only has she taken a leadership role, she has been an active recruiter, and has created many activities to include in the workshops.

Committed to peace, Hannah was disappointed when the United States went to war in Iraq. She wanted to help the community express its desire for peace. Inspired by the book, Sadako and the 1000 Paper Cranes, she invited citizens in the surrounding towns to come to a Paper Crane Making Party. She read to them the story of the Japanese girl who was made ill by radiation from the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in the Second World War. It was this young child’s desire to create 1,000 paper cranes so that her wish to regain health would be granted, as the Japanese legend promised. Ever since the story has been known, people have created paper cranes as symbols of peace.

More than 40 children, adults, and seniors came to Hannah’s Paper Crane Making Party. A woman from Japan was a surprise guest. She presented the group with several hundred paper cranes made by the Japanese survivors. She also gave the group a garland made by American children. At the end of the party, 430 cranes had been made. Hannah reached her goal of 1,000 when boxes filled with paper cranes began arriving from neighboring towns. Finally, 1,000 paper cranes and a note expressing a wish for peace were sent to her Senator who saw that they were hand delivered to the White House. The beautiful Japanese cranes were not included in the box sent to Washington. Hannah wanted them saved to hang in the Quabbin Mediation office to remind people that conflict resolution and mediation are paths to peace.

SOUTH SEVIER YOUTH COURT COMMITTEE

The South Sevier Youth Court was created in February 2001. Approximately 850 hours of service, including court sessions and training, are annually donated through this program. There are 14 Youth Court Members. Each of them have eight hours of required training each year, spend one to two hours each month in court and three to four days each year are spent at a regional conference.

Each member is dedicated to the Youth Court. They spend countless hours, in addition to those above, to make the court work. The Youth Court provides positive peer pressure for punishment to youth offenders. Court members have to judge and find appropriate punishments for their peers and friends, which is difficult. Although the members are teens, they are professional in their court dealings and use good judgment. They also have to face their peers and agree to any judgment they receive by going to Youth Court, the offender has no permanent juvenile record.

Youth Court members see their peers and friends come into the court. Yet they have to put personal feelings aside and give an unbiased opinion when they give judgments. They may see a difficult case where the offender does not want to cooperate with what the committee decides on. When that happens, they have to be stern and show authority; this is difficult in some cases. The skills the youth members are learning help them now and will continue to help in making decisions for years to come.

The Youth Court members do not receive compensation for what they do. They have made a great impact on the community through their dedication to helping their peers. In addition, some of the clients of the court have been given a “second chance” because of the existence of the Youth Court. Without the service of the individuals within the Youth Court system, it would be impossible to provide a positive alternative to Juvenile Court.

MICHAEL B. WILLIAMS

Michael Williams has dedicated his life’s work to helping individuals to heal and lead healthy lives. For 16 years, Mr. Williams has worked in the corrections field with incarcerated men and women.

Since 1998, Mr. Williams has been helping individuals at the Kenosha County Detention Center develop the skills necessary to live healthy lifestyles and have healthy relationships through the Living Free Program. Often the men in the Detention Center must heal from the wounds inflicted upon them as children.

In 2002, Mr. Williams learned that WoMen and Children’s Horizons, the local advocacy center and emergency shelter for victims of domestic abuse, began to offer programming to stop men from abusive behavior. He contacted the agency and was trained to work with abusive individuals. Since then, he has volunteered as one of the group facilitators in the program that is known as Circle of Change. He is one of five facilitators who meet with a group of men weekly, many completing the program as a part of the conditions of their parole.

Through the 26-week Circle of Change Group, men who have been controlling and abusive in their relationships learn to: ·Identify the issues surrounding domestic abuse in their lives; ·Become accountable for the things they say and do; ·Get in touch with their own issues of child abuse or witnessing violence as children; ·Begin to heal and express themselves emotionally; ·Face the consequences of past abusive behavior; ·Choose nonviolence each day.

Mr. Williams is a crucial element of the Circle of Change group. He presents a positive image of what it means to be a man that the program participants can use in the development of their new violence-free lifestyles. Many men, both inside and outside of the Detention Center, have benefited by the work that Michael Williams does in the community.

ANDREA WEBER

Andrea Weber is the dedicated mother of five children. Her third child, Madeline, has a genetic disorder called Angelman Syndrome. This syndrome is characterized by severe/profound mental retardation, developmental delay, seizure disorder and lack of speech. Madeline, who is now six years old, was diagnosed at one year of age.

While caring for all of her children and home schooling using a Christian-based curriculum, Mrs. Weber created the “Love An Angel Foundation.” Since residential housing for children like Madeline did not exist in her area, Mrs.Weber created this foundation to raise money to build “Halo Farms.” By holding a major fundraiser each year, she has raised more than $100,000. Over the past five years, Mrs. Weber has used the money to sponsor a lecture at a local children’s hospital to raise awareness of this rare genetic disorder, to help support a national Angelman foundation, and to contribute money towards special needs horseback riding. In addition, she has been able to set aside more than $75,000 to begin the building of “Halo Farms.” It is her vision that this property will offer safe/supervised housing for children/adolescents with special needs, as well as offer special needs horseback riding to residents and non-residents alike.

As often happens, the work that Mrs. Weber has done has helped her form connections with other families with children like Madeline. She has formed a support group for these families and monthly family get-togethers provide much needed acceptance and support for struggling young couples with special-needs children.

Mrs. Weber identified a community need and a solution and set about raising funds to meet the need. She has facilitated connection building as she continues to bring together families in crisis and offer them hope. The impact of her foundation is clearly the opportunity to provide safe housing for children with special needs. Reaching beyond the children’s safety, the impact of providing such housing extends to immediate and extended families as well as workplace and social circles.