Jonathan Liu
As a high school student, Jonathan Liu was anything but ordinary. He traveled to the He Bei province in China every summer to make sure the local children knew what it was to dream, to follow those dreams, and to make them come true.
He would travel to the rural area of LeShui County and live with students’ families with no air conditioning in the summers when it was 90 degrees. Most of the students were from farming families and had never left their hometown. Jonathan encouraged them through motivating speeches on the importance of education and chasing their dreams. Along with teaching the students English and mentoring them, Jonathan also donated 800 books to the school.
With Jonathan’s help, more students continued their education and went to high school; some are even on the path to college. The students, empowered with knowledge about the world beyond their hometown, started to write down their dreams. After working with more than 300 students over three years, Jonathan compiled all of their shared dreams into a book entitled, Let Our Dreams Fly.
Jonathan continues his work with young people through his nonprofit appropriately called “Dreams Fly.”
Elle Bacon
Elle has been volunteering with special needs kids for eight years and she’s only 16.
Over her years as a volunteer, she has coached basketball and bowling among other positions. Elle recognized a need—the special needs basketball team her brother was coaching didn’t have a cheerleading squad.
Elle is currently serving as the cheerleading coach for a special needs squad that goes to the Special Olympics every winter. And at 16, she runs the program singlehandedly.
With every athlete she incorporates into her program, she also strives to create community inclusion. Despite the diversity of her squad—a Cerebal Palsy, a wheelchairs, autism—she enthusiastically leads the only special needs squad in the metro west area of Wayland, Mass. Not only are Elle’s cheerleaders benefiting from physical exercise, but they all get a sense of community—something that is extremely difficult to achieve for people with special needs.
Elle does none of this to expand her resume. She does this because she simply likes working with the athletes and takes great pride in their successes each season. Now that’s a true volunteer!
Janice Strizver
For many residents living in Southern California, the firestorm of 2007 was a devastating time. More than 1,100 homes were burned, including the home of Janice Strizver.
The majority of victims who lost their homes were uninsured or underinsured and had little to no means of collecting supplies to rebuild their homes. That is where Janice came in. Even though she lost her own home, she tirelessly worked to help others in similar situations. She began coordinating donations for other firestorm victims by reaching out to businesses and charities in the community. Her efforts brought more than $100,000 worth of donations to the victims including building materials such as nails, doors, tools, lights, etc.
As the leader of the only organization solely dedicated to helping the victims of the firestorm, Janice worked endlessly to distribute supplies and other items to as many people as possible, putting their homes ahead of her own.
In addition to working full-time and also rebuilding her own home, Janice made it her mission to get the victims of the 2007 firestorm in Southern California back on their feet and back in permanent homes.
Svetlana Kim
Victoria Glidden
Even though her family does not have much, Victoria Glidden, an 11-year-old from Boston, MA, does everything she can to improve the lives of thousands of other children in her community.
Victoria was elected as one of twelve Red Sox “Kid Nation Captains.” As a captain, she worked with a team to volunteer her time and gather supplies like winter apparel for less fortunate children in Boston. With the help of her friends and family she collected 350 coats. When Victoria added her contribution with the rest of the Kid Nation Captains, they had more than 1,000 winter items for children.
In the fall Victoria volunteered her time to a school supplies drive for less fortunate children with the Kid Nation Captains. Victoria single handedly collected more than 4,000 items that in turn helped to fill 2,000 backpacks with supplies. Accompanied by her fellow captains, Victoria spent a whole day at Fenway Park handing out the backpacks to students. The project required her attention for most of a summer, but she was more than happy to do it in order to help other children.
At such a young age, and living with not much, Victoria has worked with a team to improve the lives of many children throughout the city of Boston.
Joy Wright
Anna Wherry
Planting the seeds of community is something for which 17 year-old Anna Wherry has a passion. In addition to attending high school and volunteering with the Baltimore Medical System, Anna has been working to make life in the United States easier for a group of Bhutanese refugees.
Anna has worked to introduce urban farming techniques to members of a refugee community in Baltimore, whose citizens suffer from insufficient access to food. After meeting Khada Nanda Upret, a Nepali refugee from Bhutan, Anna discovered that many Bhutanese refugees grew up surviving on their crops. Because there was a lack of space for gardening in Baltimore, Anna helped the refugees find a place near their community to set up a garden. The plot of land they found was run by Regional Management Inc., a property management company.
The owners of Regional Management Inc. support a former Provisional Accelerated Learning (PAL) center called the Goodnow Community Center. The refugees were already familiar with the Center because of its educational and recreational resources. Civic Works, Baltimore’s service corps, helped the Center obtain sod cutting and tilling equipment while Regional Management’s buildings and grounds staff helped the Bhutanese operate the equipment. Anna, with her supervisor's help, submitted an application to the Parks & People Foundation for the Bhutanese refugees to acquire seedlings and garden equipment.
Through Anna’s work, the Bhutanese refugees now have the Karesa Bari Community Garden, a plot of land where they can plant crops and other plants. “When you observe the Bhutanese families digging and planting in the earth, it is apparent that there is something important taking place,” Anna said. She said she cannot believe how quickly the project took off and feels like something was at work to bring all of these special people together for one common goal. When Anna ponders how the Bhutanese will feel when they harvest their first crop from American soil, she hopes it will nourish their stomachs and their souls.
Andrea Aitken
In order for the military to be successful, it is imperative soldiers can rest easy knowing their families are safe and taken care of. Andrea Aitken assures this by sharing her experiences about army life with new spouses and helping them cope with the challenges they will face. By giving back to the military community, she is sharing strength with the ones left behind and allowing soldiers to complete their missions without distractions and worries about their home life.
Andrea is the president of the Spouses Club in Stuttgart, Germany. Under her leadership, the club has 22 board positions and raises money to give back to the community. In one year alone, the organization gave more than $40,000 in college scholarships to high school students and more than $9,000 thousand to community programs like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.
Along with being involved with the Spouses Club, Andrea is also a leader of the Afericom Family Readiness Group. She mobilizes volunteers in Africa to provide an opportunity for military stationed there to communicate with their families at the military command center in Stuttgart.
Andrea is a recipient of the Presidential Volunteer award for surpassing 2,000 hours of volunteering in one year and was named the Military Spouse of the Year in Stuttgart in 2008. For this, Andrea is a Daily Point of Light.
Farrah Overman
With her strong passion to help others and devotion to volunteer work, Farrah Overman has made a huge, lasting impact in her local Army community.
There are few volunteer opportunities in the community that Farrah isn’t engaged in. She works almost full-time as the Army community service voluneer coordinator mananging more than 25 volunteers. She assists the volunteer coordinator with training new volunteers and administrative tasks. In addition, she volunteers as a coach for the school wrestling team, teaching self-defense classes to teens and Army spouses. Her activies also include PTSA president, Army Family Team Building (AFTB) Master Trainer, and Girl Scout co-leader. She is also the publicity chair for the Community Club and managed the operations center at the past Army Family Action Plan conference.
As PTSA president, she helped raise money for scholarships and to order new equipment for the school. Her self-defense classes helped ensure that women in the community are prepared to defend themselves. Her work with Army Family Action Plan helps bring to light issues affecting the entire community. As an AFTB instructor, she provides training to new spouses so they understand all the programs available to then and how to use those programs effectively.
Farrah’s humor, passion, drive and ability to keep the end goal in sight are just a few of the qualities that make her great volunteer. For this, Farrah is a Daily Point of Light.