Arlan Berglass

After volunteering for 211, Arlan realized that there just are not enough social service organizations to go around. It occurred to him that we can do everything we want to do if people just stepped up and realized that they can make a positive difference in other people’s lives. After the EmpowerLA resolution passed the Los Angeles School Board, inspiring parents and grandparents to help during volunteer recognition week with a kickoff event at the Rose Bowl called “Celebrate LA” and ending with Big Sunday (the Mayors day of service, the Pass It On Student Mentoring Program where older students mentor younger students was created. Although these students are only one year apart, they may be two or three years apart in a certain subject such as reading or math. The concept is that giving every student 4th through 12th grade the opportunity to have a mentor and to be a mentor. Therefore, the Pass It On Student Mentoring Program after-school program was created.

The Pass It On Student Mentoring Program includes the Pass It On Mentoring Connection Game. It is an after-school program from 3-5pm for any students that wish to be a mentor or to have a mentor. The game has been re-produced by Redmat Publishing who is getting ready to distribute it to 83,000 schools nationwide over the next 5 years. Hopefully children in America will be mentoring students in third world countries on their $100 laptops. In order to make this happen, a “Pass It On” collaborative has been formed, which includes Junior Achievement, Roots and Shoots, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Boys and Girls Clubs, Los Angeles Unified School District, Partnership for Los Angeles Schools (Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s program), Los Angeles Unified School District Volunteer Program, Youth Mentoring Connection, Children Uniting Nations, Catholic Big Brothers Big Sisters, Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters, Educare Foundation, LA Team Mentor, Fulfillment Fund and everyone else working with the youth that want to promote Passing It On. Learn it, Live it, Pass it on!

The fact that a young student realizes that they can actually make a positive difference in another student’s life is very inspiring. The fact that a student has a mentor that believes in them is encouraging. The mentor is trained to constantly be giving the protégé rewards for their acts of kindness. Students are realizing that they can become popular for doing acts of kindness!

Terri Munson

Operation Medical Libraries

Operation Medical Libraries (OML) collects and distributes current medical textbooks and journals through a partnership with American medical schools, hospitals, and physicians and the United States military. Its purpose is to foster the creation of permanent medical libraries and support the expansion of existing collections in conflict regions where healthcare education and the practice of medicine are suffering. An economical and efficient shipping model was developed using the Army Post Office (APO) system. OML acts as a book broker and matches willing textbook/journal donors in the United Sates with deployed US Air Force, Army, and Navy medical Corps (MC) and the US Air Force and Army Nurse Corps (NC) representatives, who are struggling to get textbooks back in the hands of Afghan and Iraqi medical professionals.

OML volunteers update the website and blog, pack textbooks for shipments, and answers phone and email inquiries from potential and current OML participants and recipients. Valerie Walker, the founder of OML, volunteers her time and talents because she believes every person is entitled to have quality health care. Diseases and injuries do not recognize country boundaries. OML exists to shrink the educational gap in all areas of health sciences in developing countries, which globally face the same problem: doctors and nurses go without the latest professional information they need to provide proper health care to their patients.

OML’s impact has been immediate and its affects will be felt by millions of people for generations to come. According to former OML recipient stationed in Heart, Afghanistan, LCDR Bruce Deschere, USN, MC, “A typical doctor can have 200,000 patients over his or her career. Do the math, and the lack of up-to-date medical textbooks can literally impact the care of millions.”

Since the projects inception, Walker has facilitated the shipment of more than 16 tons of medical materials. This figure continues to increase due to a collaboration of over 20 partners from across the country, including publishers, authors, university medical schools, hospital libraries, and organizations. Physicians have been inspired to give because they feel a kinship toward their foreign medical professionals.

OML has and will continue to significantly enhance the initial and continuing medical education of healthcare professionals in communities crippled by the lack of materials. Through its support of everyday healthcare and academic medicine, OML will impact the long-term health and welfare of people and ultimately support the development of essential services and human rights in regions torn by conflict. Seven countries have received OML medical textbooks/journals. The majority of these materials have been donated Afghan and Iraqi medical universities and hospitals.

In addition to advancing medical education and improving health care, OML makes a “green” difference. According to the Clinton Global Initiative, over 7,000 tons of usable medical materials and supplies are discarded every day in American hospitals and clinics. Most of these items are outright incinerated or deposited in landfills. The global impact of OML in includes extending the productive life of a product made by cutting trees, as well as reducing the pressures on the landfill sites and the pollution from incinerators.

OML has given Walker the opportunity to significantly touch the lives of strangers, including burqa-clad women. The OML ripples have already improved the lives of children and adults living in developing countries.

The best way to improve your life is by improving someone else’s life. There are thousands of volunteer organizations focusing on causes from pets to people. There is a project for everyone’s passion, and once you find your passion; your life will be enriched.

Kenneth Prather

Kenneth Prather is on disability retirement due to a chronic disorder called Ankylosing Spondylitis. He was also severely hurt in 1998, resulting in him being on life support for 32 days, three months in a long term intensive care hospital and three years in a nursing home. It was in the nursing home where he founded the outreach program titled Reaching For Joy. It is a volunteer outreach program with eight components falling under the umbrella program. Kenneth serves as a volunteer Hospice Grief and Transition Counselor and he also makes Hospice presentations called “Memories: Healing From Within.”

In addition, Kenneth is also a Docent at the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo where, under Reaching For Joy’s Care-A-Van program, he and other volunteers take zoo animals to visit with sick children at the local Children’s Hospital. Kenneth and the other volunteers go room to room and even into the ICU rooms when requested. His latest program within Reaching For Joy is titled A Day Away. The Day Away programs helps dreams come true for children who are terminal or have a chronic illness. The children and their families are taken and given a behind the scenes tour at the local zoo or one of two wildlife refuges were Kenneth also volunteers. The Day Away programs, along with all his other services, are totally funded by Kenneth’s disability check and small donations.

Kenneth volunteers so he can see a smile on a face that has not smiled for a long time. He volunteers to see a family finally be able to laugh, to see a tear that is a tear of joy and to give comfort to grieving families.

Kenneth and the Reaching For Joys program has made a definite impact in his community. Many families have been touched, and there has been such a buzz about him that all the major newspapers in his area have written articles about his service. Kenneth believed Reaching For Joy really shows people something special. If you reach for joy, you may grasp it. The first place you will find it is within but then it can bring positive energy all around.

Kenneth believes if you have never volunteered, you are missing out. You are missing out on giving back to your community but you are also missing out on giving back to yourself.

Hanna Richardson

Fourteen year old Hanna Richardson has shown distinction through her volunteerism to help the Intracranial Hypertension Research Foundation. Hanna suffers from this chronic illness which is a neurological disorder that causes debilitating headaches and a high risk of vision loss. Rather than become discouraged by the lack of a cure, Hanna took the initiative to try to help find a cure. She has continued this crusade since 2004 while continuing to battle frequent pain, fatigue and school struggles.

Every year since 2004 Hanna has made Christmas candy as a fundraiser for the Intracranial Hypertension Research Foundation. At the time, the research foundation was fairly new and had received only a few charitable donations. For a child with this disorder to try to raise awareness and raise funds toward research was inspirational to the foundation. They were thrilled with Hanna’s project and spread the word to all the members of the foundation. Hanna attempts to make candy every year but there have been times when the disorder caused her to feel too ill to take on the project. There have also been times when her friends from her Girl Scout troop rallied round her and helped her to finish making the candy.

Hanna’s attempt at raising money to find a cure reaches far beyond the $1,000 that she has personally raised. When other members of the research foundation heard her story, the inspiration took place. Since Hanna’s first project, other members have gone on to hold multiple fundraisers such as music benefits, golf tournaments and walkathons. These other projects have been able to raise more than $100,000 for the IHRF. Hanna’s individual efforts were a spark that started the flame that continues today.

Joy Amuedo

Joy Amuedo volunteers with the Columbia Community Garden Coalition as a garden manager for the St. Joseph Street garden in Columbia, Missouri. She served two years as an AmeriCorps member with the University of Missouri, Kansas City-Institute for Human Development’s Community Support Navigators program, at the local host site, Boone County Family Services, mentoring individuals with disabilities. It was during this service that the St. Joseph Street community garden was created. Joy was instrumental in the startup and day-to-day operations of the garden, as well as being a wonderful facilitator for relationships between the people with disabilities she mentored and the neighbors and community members.

She loves to grow food and believes anyone and everyone can increase their access to healthy home grown food by growing it themselves. The community garden is the best way to do it in community with other people, all kinds of people with the desire to garden in common. As an AmeriCorps member serving people with developmental disabilities, Joy saw the creation of the garden as a wonderfully rich way for them to become involved in a mainstream community activity and do something fun and healthy alongside other members of the community.

People who might otherwise have not gardened successfully on their own received help and support to be a part of the community garden and experience the joy (and sweat!) of growing food and flowers. When they established the garden 3 years ago they went into it considering the accessibility needs of people with all kinds of disabilities. They built approximately 50 feet of almost waist high raised beds so people in wheelchairs and/or other accessibility issues could garden. The group learned a lot over the last two growing seasons and are now making improvements to the raised beds by repairing sidewalks and surrounding the beds with a good surface for wheelchairs, general safety and better accessibility to all sides of the beds.

All of the folks who garden at the St. Joseph garden are helpful to each other and there is a great climate of cooperation among gardeners of all levels of experience and ability. It is a beautiful thing to see. Another great aspect of this garden is collaboration with University of Missouri students with an organization called Sustain Mizzou. They are a fired up bunch of amazing young people who with boundless energy who have the issues of global sustainability front and center on their radar screens and see urban gardens as a tremendous way for people to increase their intake of fresh local foods and to become more connected with the earth. Their volunteers have been instrumental in the development of the St. Joe garden.

Joy has been able to overcome some of her own accessibility and confidence issues after a time of not being able or thinking she was not able, to garden. It has been an eye opener in a lot of ways and she never ceases to be amazed at how healing gardening can be for both body and spirit. She has grown up at the knee of an organic gardener but she learns something new every time she sets foot in the garden. The collaboration with the Mizzou kids and with all the people through her AmeriCorps service have helped Joy achieve and aspire to greater levels of service in her life. In addition, Joy was able to make contacts that led her to what she is doing now which involves increasing access to fresh locally grown foods for people with limited resources.

The growing season is the busiest time but there is work and planning to be done all year long. Joy served more in the development of the garden and continues to learn about being a more effective garden manager. She is better with the dirt than the organizing but Joy continues to improve and continue to surround herself with capable, committed people who are patient and helpful, encouraging and inspiring! It is indeed a community effort.

There is no better way to improve your own sense of self and to partake of the real joys of life than to reach out to others and to build stronger communities for all people. The benefits far outweigh any excuse you can come up with for not engaging in service, whatever it may be. Everyone can do something.

Lailah Muwwakkil

Ms. Lailah A. Muwwakkil is the Director and Founder of L’ S O A R the acronym originally stood for Ladies-Striving, Overturning, Achieving, Receiving, Reward because she was originally working with female foster youth via Sacramento County’s Sacramento Assessment Center. When they asked her to also service their young men the acronym L’ S O A R also became known as, Leaders-Striving, Overturning, Achieving, Receiving, Rewarding.

Lailah entered into Sacramento’s foster system when she and her three sisters came to Sacramento from the Bay Area by way of group home placement in 1986. Unfortunately, neither the group home nor their social worker insured that they were provided with the skills and the knowledge needed to function in mainstream society once they emancipated from the system.

Prior to Lailah’s emancipation in 1991 her group home was closed for fund misappropriation. From high school, Lailah entered into Sacramento State University. Her stay there was very short lived due to the fact she did not have the financial means to afford to remain a college student at CSUS nor did she know how to acquire the needed funds and or resources to be successful at Sacramento State. Knowing deep within that she did not want to become a statistical failure as a former foster youth, she enrolled years later at Cosumnes River College where she is currently working on her AA degree in Business Administration. Upon completion of her degree, she will transfer to Sacramento State.

Aside from being a college student, single parent, and a full-time employee with the State of California, she is also working with foster youth on a once a month basis by way of the Sacramento Assessment Center. She holds empowerment sessions with their foster youth and in her sessions, she teaches them life skills and helps with their overall development that way they can achieve their goals upon emancipation. Although she was the only person initially volunteering via her program L’ S O A R her efforts have inspired others including myself to help with the development of Sacramento’s underserved youth, which also includes foster youth.

Lailah brings in public speakers. She helps the youth to be mindful of those in worse situations than themselves and as a result, Lailah will be delivering letters to Shriners Hospital and UC Davis to help inspire their hospitalized youth. This letter-writing project will start in March of 2009. The youth will work on designing the letter and she will make the copies and delivery them monthly to Shriners and UC Davis for them to delivery to those youth who are hospitalized.

At the end of each monthly empowerment sessions, she distributes resource material to the youth and they are each given an L’ S O AR Contractual Success Agreement. This agreement is designed to help the youth to see they are establishing a contract with themselves for their own personal growth and development. This is a very conventional and out of the box thinking approach that is designed to help the youth to see that they are in total control of their destiny.

Lailah is in the process of transforming L’ S O A R into a non-profit. Outside of L’ S O R A she is also very involved in community service on her job and in the community.

Tedra Henry accompanied her to the December 2008 session titled, “Pamper Me Beautiful and Handsome for the Holiday ’s. Lailah provided the youth with a full Holiday meal. Her pervious business professor, Mr. Lindsey Humphrey contributed a financial donation to cover gifts for the youth. The youth were very happy to see that much time and effort was put into acknowledging them during the Holiday Season. Lailah stated to them that being a former foster youth, she herself knows how it feels like not to be with family during the holiday times and she wanted to lift up their spirits. I enjoyed being able to help her by serving the meal and distributing the gifts. She also provided the Assessment Center staff with certificates of appreciation to acknowledge the time they too allocate to the foster youth on a monthly basis.

She is working on trying to put on a, Foster Youth Ball; this event will be one of the avenues used to honor high school graduating foster youth throughout Sacramento. The Foster Youth Ball will be the first of its kind if she is successful in pulling it off. She is trying to find a location to allow L’ S O A R to host the ball free of charge in Sacramento.

L’ S O A R’s efforts are truly deserving of recognition. Lailah has passion for underserved youth and foster youth, having walked down that path herself. She believes and knows that everyone can achieve greatness. She does not allow her past hurt, pain, abuse, and the like, to hinder her from being a higher achiever. She is more concerned about others than herself. She is truly shinning a light of hope in the direction of those whom she comes across who are in need of a, Pick Me Up. She has met with various legislative persons in an effort to keep the needs of foster youth on the forefront of the minds of the powers that be within Sacramento.

The Assessment Center is not compensating Lailah or the volunteers who work with her everyone via L’ S O A R currently volunteers their time free of charge. Lailah by way of her L’ S O A R program, is helping to reduce the youth recidivism rate while at the same time helping to reduce the number of entries into the foster system for generations to come.

Don & Nell Wilson

Don and Nell Wilson explain their motivation for service in a scripture quote, “to whom much is given, much is expected” and say that God has been good to them and as long as he gives them the strength to help others, they will continue to do so. An excellent example of these caring, considerate and dedicated individuals who at the ages of 87 and 89, brave the elements to deliver meals to those desperately in need of home delivered meals. They see to it that everyone on their route is doing well, making each recipient feel important and cared for, lifting spirits and giving assistance when needed. They are always positive and helpful with wonderful attitudes and outlooks on life.

Don and Nell are a faithful volunteer couple who consistently deliver meals on wheels to their homebound community members through the Clay County Senior Citizen Center. Those on their route desperately need not only the hot nutritious meals, but the care and concern provided by this couple. They always take that extra time to visit with each individual to assure them that they are important and cared for. This couple represents what we should all strive to be—kind and generous through financial support but more importantly, through the time they devote to their community. They also volunteer at the Clay County 1890 Jail Museum to assure that those who visit as well as young people who live in the community are educated as to their rich cultural heritage. At the ages of 87 and 89, they are able bring to life the museum displays, sharing their own personal stories of how life actually was “back in their day” leaving a lasting memory with all who visit the museum.

Not only do they set an example but their example spreads to family members like a brother who spent 6 months with them after Hurricane Katrina hit his home in New Orleans. Their dedication and enthusiasm in helping others lead him to volunteer as well and they are a constant reminder of dedication and a shining example to younger volunteers.

Knight Nonprofit Center

After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, many of the nonprofit agencies in the Mississippi area were homeless. The aftermath of the storm placed such strains on their limited staff and facilities—many were working out of portable buildings—that their own needs for adequate office space were put on the back burner. Anthony Topazi, President of MS Power Company and the Gulf Coast Business Council, had a vision and the drive to build a nonprofit center to house a majority of the nonprofit agencies along the Gulf Coast.

Because of the generosity and vision of several foundations, Mississippi now has the Knight Nonprofit Center. Knight Nonprofit Center is a national foundation with local roots. The organization chooses, as the Knight brothers chose, to seek opportunities that can transform communities and help them reach their highest potential. The Knight Nonprofit Center wants to ensure that each community’s citizens get the information they need to thrive in a democracy.

Their facility is now home to thirteen agencies with room to spare. The agencies include but are not limited to United Way of South Mississippi, The Boys & Girls Clubs of the Gulf Coast, Gulf Coast Symphony, Mississippi Coast Chamber of Commerce, Gulf Coast Business Council, Gulf Coast Renaissance, American Federation of Teachers and Gulf Coast Community Foundation.

The Center believes nothing big happens without a big idea. In every project they fund, the idea comes first. Each time someone comes before them for a request, the group looks for the transformational potential. They look for the best opportunities to turn those ideas into action!

William Fuller

William "Dalton" Fuller is seventeen years old and attends Kinston High School in Kinston, AL. He will be graduating as an honor student in May of 2009. During his time in high school, he has made service a priority while still excelling with his studies. He has taken dual enrollment classes through a local junior college and has been active in many school activities as well as holding a job through his high school years.

Dalton is a member of Ino Baptist Church. He is an active participant in the youth group and the youth choir. Dalton has attended numerous mission trips with the church and will continue to do so when he attends college.

In March of 2007, an F-3 tornado hit Enterprise, AL. Dalton volunteered to assist the 12th Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office. He helped with the recovery efforts by rescuing the individuals that were trapped in the high school in Enterprise. Dalton worked in the band room and was a diligent volunteer. Due to the devastation, a temporary morgue had to be set up at the high school also. As bodies were excavated from the rubble, Dalton saw what, in a matter of seconds, a natural disaster could do to so many both directly and indirectly.

In addition to his extracurricular activities, school responsibilities and scheduled volunteer work, the opportunity to serve during a time of disaster changed Dalton’s life. Being involved in the recovery process showed him what devastation does to the people involved and the community as a whole. That natural disaster was something Dalton could not fully describe in words. However, serving during the after math of the tornado in March of 2007 caused him to appreciate the community he lives in and the importance of community service and offering assistance to others in time of need.