Carolyn Blashek
After September 11, 2001, Carolyn Blashek desired to serve our country. A 46-year-old mother of two, she went to her local Marine Corps recruiting station to enlist but was told she was “too old.” Determined to still do something, Carolyn began volunteering in the military lounge of the Los Angeles Airport. It was an encounter with a troubled soldier on his way back overseas that changed her life forever.
Through this interaction, Carolyn realized surviving is sometimes harder for soldiers than risking their lives. Soldiers need to know their lives matter. Within two weeks, Carolyn started Operation Gratitude. Operation Gratitude annually sends more than 100,000 care packages filled with snacks, toiletries, entertainment items, and personal letters of appreciation addressed individually to U.S. service members deployed, veterans, and children left behind. Its number one mission is to lift morale, bring a smile to a service member’s face, and express to military and their families the appreciation and support of the American people.
Operation Gratitude has successfully provided an avenue for all Americans to express their appreciation to the military. The National Guard Armory has become Operation Gratitude’s headquarters, and Carolyn is especially pleased to see people of all backgrounds, ethnicities, ages, and more come together in common cause to put a smile on a service member’s face and volunteer. It has additionally provided military families a place to be honored, feel comfortable, and be comforted.
When Carolyn started Operation Gratitude in her living room, she made a commitment to send care packages to servicemen and women in combat until the war ended. What she originally anticipated to be a yearlong commitment at most turned into a decade-long labor of love with nearly one million care packages shipped to troops in combat. Carolyn says her experience helps her realize all of us have the capacity to perform meaningful service for our country, whether we are in uniform or not.
Inspired by Carolyn’s story and want to get involved? Check out Operation Gratitude’s website on ways to get involved and volunteer here! http://www.operationgratitude.com/get-involved/how-you-can-help/
The Hugs Project
The Hugs Project was started in June 2004 Ray and Karen Stark when they decided every American service member deserved to know they were loved and appreciated by their fellow Americans at home. These sentiments are shared with service men and women through thoughtful care packages full of items soldiers need to get by, but also items to remind them of home and to help ease their time in the Middle East. It started when its founding members recognized a need to keep troops cool in the blazing heat of summer and warm in the frosty winters. They began to send cool ties, which go around the neck and help cool down service members. The organization has expanded beyond just cool ties and now sends whatever supplies troops need or tokens to help remind them of the American citizen’s appreciation for their service. Whenever the Hugs Project receives word of troops in need their team of volunteers leaps into action and piles packages full of all the necessities. Troops all over the Middle East have received thoughtful care packages from the Hugs Project, and each day more are reaching out to the organization asking for basic supplies. Besides the cool ties, The Hugs Project sends items such as socks, canned food, band aids, hygiene products, handmade Christmas ornaments and stockings, Oreos, CDs, and whatever else might be desired.
To date, the Hugs Project has sent over 1.9 million cool ties, 300,000 helmet coolers, and more than 900 tons of care package items. The organization has members in all fifty states and even in fifty-eight foreign countries. The out pouring of appreciation from U.S. Military troops fuels more and more volunteers to join this wonderful cause. The Hugs project urges everyone to take a moment to appreciate the freedoms provided for them by our troops. Please support this wonderful cause by donating your time, care package items, or money to The Hugs Project. The dedication of our troops must be matched with the utmost gratitude of American citizens. Points of Light encourages people to thank these troops while in service, but also when they return home. By providing reintegration community solutions , veterans and their families can feel united and supported.
Linda Nunez
After suffering violence and abuse at different times in her youth, Linda Nunez currently experiences post-traumatic stress disorder as a result. However, she does not let that stop her from helping others who have similarly shared her struggles, especially war veterans. She has always channeled her energy into making positive change, and she has done just that through her creation of VASoCal, which is dedicated to serving those who first served us.
Linda Nunez is CEO of Veterans Alliance of Southern California Inc., founded in 2009 by her husband, a disabled veteran. The organization aims to significantly reduce the incidence of veteran homelessness in Southern California through direct intervention, stabilization through affordable and safe housing, case management, partnership, advocacy, and community education. Specifically, the organization provides emergency resources to at-risk and homeless veterans, while moving the veterans toward stable housing through education, benefits assistance, career and job training, and long-term help. Included in this assistance is transportation to the nearest veteran health care system, furniture once housed, and supportive services before, during, and after housing needs are met.
Veterans Alliance, with the help of donors, volunteers, and the community, has provided more than 6,000 nights of privately funded emergency or short-term shelter to homeless veterans, more than 400 donated sleeping bags during cold weather to street homeless, more than 800 jackets, and countless blankets, hoodies, hats, gloves, and socks. With Linda’s help, the organization has also reunited veteran families in three states outside of California, which located the families and provided reunification counseling and the financial means to return home. VASoCal has additionally rehoused more than 30 single men and women, all veterans, and 13 veteran families.
Linda has always made it her personal mission to show that it should not just a bumper sticker encouraging others to “support our troops”, but a reality. She hopes that one day, individuals will be ready to answer the call to service and end veteran homelessness so that her mission will be accomplished and all of our heroes will be saved. All of this and more is why Linda Nunez is a Daily Point of Light.
Inspired this 4th of July week by Linda’s story? Read more here https://www.pointsoflight.org/programs/military-initiatives/community-blueprint on ways that you can personally produce positive, measurable outcomes for veterans, military members, and their families.
Nick Esposito
Nick Esposito has dedicated himself to service by working in the Baltimore public schools. Nick started his service journey while he was a teacher with Teach for America and working at the Baltimore School of the Arts. It was during that time that Nick led the first service trip for Baltimore City School students to a Habitat for Humanity project in Durham, North Carolina. After seeing the inspirational impact the trip had on everyone involved Nick was inspired to start Service Break Connect Inc.
Service Break Connect’s mission is to develop a community of volunteers whose enthusiasm, passion and skills are connected with opportunities to serve. The organization recognizes that in order to develop the volunteers of the future, the youth of today must be given the opportunity to serve their communities. Because not all students can afford to participate in service trips, Service Break Connect leverages donations and corporate funding to minimize the costs of the trips for students. The organization has garnered significant interest among high school students. After the success of the 2013 trip, over 75 students signed up to take part in the 2014 trip. In order to accommodate all the student requests to participate in a service project, Nick had to create summer service opportunities to accommodate all the students. This year, Service Break Connect has organized five service projects, four of which will be led by Nick Esposito.
Service Break Connect firmly believes that every person should have the opportunity to feel the true impact that comes from volunteerism and service. Service Break Connect facilitates service trips that enable students to experience that impact while also igniting a sense of passion and purpose in the students by connecting them to communities through service.
Lesley Robinson
After losing almost everything during Hurricane Katrina, Lesley Robinson moved to Austin in 2005 with hopes of starting over. She was overwhelmed by the outpouring of generosity from her new neighbors. Strangers paid her family’s restaurant bill. Friends provided household items. With help from others, she was able to build a life in Austin.
Robinson felt inspired to pay it forward. She has been a longtime volunteer with two local organizations – Meals on Wheels and More and the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Texas.
For the past several years, Robinson has coordinated a weekly Meals on Wheels route; she and several of her colleagues from The Advisory Board Company serve multiple families in Austin that would otherwise be unable to obtain nutritious daily meals. Meals on Wheels and More serves more than 5,000 individuals and families each year. Robinson has served 200 of them.
Robinson also recruits her friends and colleagues each month to prepare and serve meals to the families staying at Austin’s Ronald McDonald House, which serves as a temporary home for families who have children undergoing treatment at local hospitals. The families, exhausted by their travels and long visits to the hospital, receive a comfortable place to stay, meals and a host of amenities. Robinson serves four families each month – 300 families each year and more than 1,700 overall.
Robinson and other volunteers also have helped the Ronald McDonald House by supporting the organization’s fundraising efforts, including helping to plan a 5K fun run and other events.
If you’re inspired by Robinson’s story, consider helping make sure others in your community have enough to eat. Check out this Meals on Wheels resource from generationOn to get started.
Maria D’Angelo
Meet Maria D’Angelo, today’s Daily Point of Light Award winner and a 2013 Women of Worth honoree. Read her story and nominate someone you know as a Daily Point of Light. (See below for more about Women of Worth.)
Maria D’AngeloMaria D’Angelo grew up in a family with little means after immigrating to the United States from Italy at age 13 and settling in Los Angeles. Witnessing the plight of other immigrant families moved her to start volunteering at a young age.
In 1993, D’Angelo founded the Children’s Lifesaving Foundation to serve homeless and at-risk children throughout the Los Angeles area. D’Angelo’s guiding concept for the organization is that a healthy, happy childhood is the firm foundation for the rest of one’s life.
D’Angelo, of Santa Monica, says that even though she was poor as a child, she was always optimistic, and she believes that sense of hope is missing from the at-risk kids she meets today.
“Perhaps it was the encouragement from my very loving father, but even among my friends – the kids in the neighborhood – there was always a feeling that we would pull out of this,” says D’Angelo. “I do not see that as much, sadly, any longer. What I see is more desperation. I wanted these children and families to see that they have the exact same right to a lovely and decent life as anyone else, to thrive and to succeed.”
Over the past 21 years, the Children’s Lifesaving Foundation has served more than 75,000 homeless and at-risk youth. The group has moved 43 families from shelters into new homes (providing furnishings, household goods, new clothing and stipends), and financially helped hundreds more.
The foundation has given out more than 45 college scholarships and offers Care Through College, an after-school tutoring and educational program. In 2004, the group launched the Vita Network, which targets a core group of families in need and works through tutoring and mentoring to ensure that children in the program will attend college.
D’Angelo was also interested in providing holiday and recreational activities for children, and set out to find an area that she could use as a summer camp. While conducting a field trip to the Santa Monica mountains, she discovered a 1,700 acre abandoned Boy Scout camp that was perfect.
D’Angelo struck a deal with the National Park Service to lease the property in exchange for making renovations, and Children’s Lifesaving Foundation volunteers went to work on the refurbishing project. Thanks to media outreach, the foundation was deluged with offers of service and donations and was able to complete more than $150,000 worth of upgrades and repairs for only $6,000.
The result was Camp4All, a recreational facility that has served 75,000 children and family members since its opening.
D’Angelo, who originally financed Children’s Lifesaving Foundation on her own and now serves as its full-time executive director, says she is motivated by the “children’s and mothers’ successes.”
“The children in our program are the first in their generation, often, to graduate from high school – and definitely college,” says D’Angelo. “That, I believe, has been our strength in the past 20 years – to give these children the confidence to hope and dream very big. We have seen these young people change the trajectory of their families’ lives, within one generation, just as my brother, Ciro, sister, Elena, and I did, as immigrants to America.”
Through the renowned Women of Worth program, Points of Light and L’Oréal Paris have partnered to celebrate women like Maria D’Angelo, a 2013 awardee, who are making a difference. Each year, 10 finalists are awarded $10,000 to support their extraordinary efforts to serve their communities. You can nominate yourself or a deserving woman in your life through June 25, 2014. Nominate and see the difference women around the country are making now by visiting WomenofWorth.com.
Patricia Boles
Meet Patricia Boles, today’s Daily Point of Light Award winner and a 2013 Women of Worth honoree. Read her story and nominate someone you know as a Daily Point of Light. (See below for more about Women of Worth.)
Patricia BolesPatricia Boles has a unique perspective on the difficulties of being a foster parent. She and her husband have personally fostered more than 100 babies – adopting 10 of them. As she discovered the many burdens facing foster parents, she also found serious shortcomings in the support available through the foster care system.
So in 1998, Boles, of San Marcos, Calif., founded Straight From The Heart, an all-volunteer organization devoted to providing services and resources to foster parents and children throughout San Diego County.
Straight From The Heart offers training, support groups, individual advocacy and mentoring for foster families who may be experiencing a host of challenges with their foster children, from behavioral problems to bedwetting, and with the bureaucracy of the foster care system itself. The organization also operates a center where families can come to receive immediate assistance with various needs. Volunteers – many of them foster parents themselves – are available 24 hours a day.
In 2013, there were about 1,650 foster parents in San Diego County and approximately 4,000 foster children. Boles estimates that almost all foster families in the county have received some kind of service from Straight From The Heart. Over the past 16 years, Straight From The Heart has given out Kid Packs of pajamas, blankets, toys, clothing and other items to more than 12,000 foster children.
The group has also provided more than 30,000 hours of mentoring to foster parents, distributed 50,000 holiday and birthday presents to foster children and given out more than 4,000 tickets to sports and cultural events to foster families. In addition, Straight From The Heart provides care for special needs foster children and has successfully lobbied for both improvements to the child welfare system and stronger laws to protect and support foster families.
Boles says the mission of Straight From The Heart is to ensure that children are loved, nurtured, protected and given a chance to soar. She credits her parents for her dedication to serving others.
“I was raised by a father that served our country and a mother that served our neighborhood, no matter where we lived,” says Boles. “She showed us by example how to love each other, especially the ones who were not ‘pretty’ to the rest of the world. The child with profound physical and mental challenges due to cerebral palsy, the 12-year-old still needing a bib, were welcome at our home.”
Aside from her own home duties, Boles is also a founding member and current president of the North San Diego County Foster Parents Association. Despite her busy schedule, she sometimes volunteers more than 1,500 hours a year for Straight From The Heart.
Boles says that much of her drive to keep fighting injustice to children comes from a personal experience. Boles’ foster daughter Monique was born to a methamphetamine addict who attempted to hide the pregnancy so as not to be kicked out of her house. Monique was born in a bathroom inside her mother’s sweatpants. Had a neighbor not insisted on taking the mother to the emergency room, Monique could have died. Boles took Monique in when she was 8 days old.
“I see the good that we do at Straight From The Heart, and the thanks of our foster and adoptive families means the world to me,” says Boles. “I am better for knowing them and lifted up by their service to children who need them so much.”
Through the renowned Women of Worth program, Points of Light and L’Oréal Paris have partnered to celebrate women like Patricia Boles, a 2013 awardee, who are making a difference. Each year, 10 finalists are awarded $10,000 to support their extraordinary efforts to serve their communities. You can nominate yourself or a deserving woman in your life through June 25, 2014. Nominate and see the difference women around the country are making now by visiting WomenofWorth.com.
Tricia Baker
Meet Tricia Baker, today’s Daily Point of Light Award winner and a 2013 Women of Worth honoree. Read her story and nominate someone you know as a Daily Point of Light. (See below for more about Women of Worth.)
Tricia BakerWhen Tricia Baker’s son Kenny was in high school, he was diagnosed with severe depression. Often overwhelmed with anxiety, Kenny would disappear for days. And because of the social stigma surrounding mental illness, he hid his condition from friends and classmates for three years, telling people he had mononucleosis.
Shortly before he would have graduated, Kenny committed suicide. For his family, the grief was compounded by continued social stigmatization. The school even tried to have Kenny’s photo stricken from its yearbook.
Baker, of Plainsboro, N.J., was an executive with a top financial firm. With support from her husband, she left her job and founded Attitudes In Reverse (AIR) in 2010 to educate youth about mental health and suicide prevention through the Coming Up for AIR program. In the years since, Baker and a small group of Attitudes In Reverse volunteers have made presentations to more than 11,000 students in New Jersey and New York – from middle school to college age – about the prevalence and warning signs of mental illness and stereotypes associated with it.
While an estimated one in four people is affected by a mental health disorder, fewer than 40 percent seek treatment due to stigma and the fear of ridicule. Coming Up for AIR Presentations also emphasize the warning signs of suicide, which is the second leading cause of death on college campuses and the third leading cause of death among high school students.
Attitudes In Reverse has also worked to change school and government policies pertaining to mental health, distributed more than 20,000 educational brochures in English and Spanish about mental illness and holds community events such as walks to raise awareness about mental health issues. The group also distributes wristbands and T-shirts to motivate youth.
Baker says she was moved to create Attitudes In Reverse in part because of the negative impact that school and community reactions to her son’s death were having on her daughter, Katelyn.
“Katelyn was a student at the same school, and received no support from school counselors,” says Baker. “She was now being judged because of her brother’s illness and the way he died. School became overwhelming for her and she started to struggle with going each day. My fight went from trying to save my son to trying to save my daughter. Attitudes In Reverse was born from conversations with Katelyn.”
In 2012, Attitudes In Reverse launched a new program called AIR Dogs: Paws for the Mind. Based on research that dog ownership has a positive effect of mental well-being, AIR Dogs hosts monthly meetings that enable people to meet and play with dogs from local shelters. Many good matches have resulted from AIR Dogs meetings.
Attitudes In Reverse is currently working to expand its educational presentations to more states. It also reaches people in multiple countries via its website and offers information and resources through a Facebook group that now has more than 500 members.
“No other child should be embarrassed or afraid of saying that they have been diagnosed with a mental health disability,” says Baker. “No other family should endure the pain of losing a child and then have to face judgment. … Attitudes In Reverse is what helped us as a family pull ourselves out of grief and despair. Attitudes In Reverse is what allows our family to continue to heal.”
Through the renowned Women of Worth program, Points of Light and L’Oréal Paris have partnered to celebrate women like Tricia Baker, a 2013 awardee, who are making a difference. Each year, 10 finalists are awarded $10,000 to support their extraordinary efforts to serve their communities. You can nominate yourself or a deserving woman in your life through June 25, 2014. Nominate and see the difference women around the country are making now by visiting WomenofWorth.com.
Melissa Peter
In 2012, Melissa founded Shear Blessings in hopes of providing healthy weekend meals to students at Blackshear Elementary School in Houston, Texas. When Friday rolled around every week, Melissa and her team at Shear Blessings would sort and pack non-perishable foods, and perishable when possible, into 200 grocery bags, which would then be transferred into individualized backpacks for selected students to take home with them, through the help of the national charity “Blessings in a Backpack.” On Monday, the backpacks would be gratefully returned and the process would start all over again for the following weekend.
It all started when Melissa, along with other members of Holy Spirit Episcopal Church, participated on a prayer tour through Houston’s 3rd Ward back in 2011, which is one of the city’s most deprived districts. While on the tour, they discovered Blackshear. Because Blackshear is a community that struggles to have access to healthy and affordable food regularly, Melissa made it her own personal mission to provide children with nutritious weekend meals, while raising awareness of the situation to the surrounding community and the children involved. She successfully supported 200 children and their families each weekend in the year 2013 with the help of Walmart’s gracious $10,000 donation, while also raising $30,000 to establish financial support of the program, and she continues to strive towards maintaining a minimum $4,000 fundraising goal per year to provide for at least 50 students.
In addition, Melissa has provided endless care to the school’s staff and administration through teacher appreciation lunches, personally revitalized the school’s library, and is expanding her program to include household items in the backpacks with the aid of outside groups. Through her tremendous efforts and noteworthy dedication to the community, Melissa was able to create a contagious energy throughout Houston towards helping these children not go hungry while honoring all that the administration of Blackshear Elementary School does for their students. She is reluctant to abandon a school and a community that is so in need of all that she had to offer. Therefore, Melissa Peter is awarded the Daily Points of Light Award for all that she has accomplished in such a short amount of time.
Regardless of all the progress Melissa has made, she still worries about all the other students waiting to receive their backpacks as well. Anyone has the opportunity to enter into her story and volunteer in Blackshear. Every third Thursday during the school year from 7-8am, Holy Spirit opens its doors to anyone who would like to donate their time and pack backpacks. Whether it is at Blackshear Elementary or any other school, make an impact, donate your time, and stop childhood hunger! Visit http://www.blessingsinabackpack.org/MakeaDifference.aspx for more information on how to be like Melissa and how to make a difference in your own community. Additionally, for more ways to make your mark in the world, check out http://www.generationon.org/kids/make-your-mark/projects/hunger to stop world hunger!
Allyson Ahlstrom
In 2010 fourteen year old Allyson Ahlstrom started a project called Threads for Teens in Santa Rosa, California. Allyson filled the communities need for clothing for girls in foster care, group homes, and situations of poverty. Her goal was to provide these girls with self-esteem and confidence as their clothing options were limited at best. The budget for girl’s clothing in foster care is quite low and often does not even begin to cover the necessities. Allyson’s project quickly transformed into much more than clothing donations when she opened her own store. Threads for Teens has a storefront located in Windsor, California and provides girls with two brand-new, head-to-toe outfits free of charge.
Allyson was able to achieve this by writing over 400 letters and emails to clothing manufacturers asking for donations. This resulted in $135,000 and donations from companies such as Tommy Hilfiger, Miss Me, Claire’s, Marmot, UGG Australia, and many more. To date, 348 girls have received complete outfits from the store, over 100 girls have received prom dresses, and over 175 have received backpacks full of school supplies. But Allyson wanted to reach out to girls nationwide!
After the success of her storefront in Windsor, Allyson took her project to the road. A truck and trailer were transformed into a mobile boutique. The Threads for Teens Summer Tour of 2013 allowed for 1000 girls to receive clothing from the mobile boutique. The mobile store reached all 48 continental states and Washington DC. Allyson’s unique approach allows for girls to feel confident in brand-new clothing. The girls feel good about themselves because they are dressed in clothes that fit, are in new condition, and are up to date with varying style trends. While shopping at the store or mobile boutique, girls can escape their problems and leave feeling confident. Allyson provides these girls with a personal stylist, a friend, and a new ambition.
Threads for Teens is always looking for new clothes and formal dresses for girls and anyone looking to contribute clothes, time or money is encouraged to contact Allyson through their website http://www.threadsforteens.org/get-involved/ . You can follow the organization on twitter (@threadsforteens) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/ThreadsforTeens). Allyson is always looking for ways to extend the scope of Threads for Teens and appreciates all the help she can get. Here at Points of Light we are always encouraging young people like Allyson to get involved! Please check out http://www.generationon.org/ to learn how you can make a difference like Allyson.
