Howard Baron
After retiring from a 28-year career as a financial manager with Chrysler Corp., Howard Baron wanted to give back to the Detroit community. A finance expert, Baron started volunteering last year as a tax preparer for the Accounting Aid Society, which provides free tax help to low- and middle-income families in southeast Michigan.
Howard Baron meets with tax client Beverly Kimble at the Accounting Aid Society.In Baron’s two tax seasons as a volunteer, he has helped about 90 clients claim more than $99,000 in tax refunds and credits. In 2013, the agency, which has around 500 volunteers, helped families claim around $24 million such credits and refunds.
In addition, Baron was a member of the first group trained by the Accounting Aid Society to work as a financial coach through the Financial Opportunity Corps program, which recruits and trains volunteers as financial coaches who then help people from low- and moderate-income households achieve financial stability.
Since the end of 2013, Baron has worked on an ongoing basis with two clients, helping them to straighten out their debts, set budgets and work toward long-term financial goals.
“My career gave me a good pension,” says Baron, of Bloomfield Hills, Mich. “I wanted to help others to have the same kind of secure lifestyle during their retirement.”
Baron also teaches others to become certified as tax preparers through classes offered by AARP.
“AARP was so pleased with the tax preparation work that I had done for both them and the Accounting Aid Society they tapped me to become an instructor,” he says.
On top of his volunteer tax preparation and financial coaching work, Baron has a passion for public education. He volunteers as a member of the Bloomfield Hills School Board.
“School funding is not what it used to be, and I wanted to use my financial skills to help schools improve their budgeting and their advocacy with the state and federal legislatures,” says Baron. “In addition, I am working to help boost the performance of students who are underachieving.”
Though his volunteer schedule keeps him busy, Baron says all of his community activities are gratifying.
“The Detroit area has seen a lot of economic pain, beginning back in the 1980s with the downturn in the auto industry and continuing today with the effects of the nationwide recession,” says Baron. “I want to do my part to help in any way I can.”
Baron says he gets an especially good feeling from helping tax clients learn about credits they have coming to them.
“Many of my clients have pretty low incomes, and they are able to get refunds on the taxes withheld from their pay. But often they don’t realize they qualify for special federal and state tax credits as well,” says Baron. “They need this money to pay bills, and it’s great to be able to help. … I look forward to every day I volunteer.”
Robby Simpson
Robby Simpson of Mount Dora, Florida is passionate about helping youth excel in school. Therefore, he decided to help others by creating a free after school tutoring program.
Simpson recruited a team of volunteer tutors to assist youth who are having difficulty in their studies. The scope of subjects Simpson’s team provides support for is wide. His team serves mostly high school students from Mount Dora and surrounding areas. Thus far, Simpson and his team have assisted 40 teens with their studies.
Simpson is a hard working individual who has a deep concern for others. He has spent the past 18 months engaging school administrators and former teachers to build a sustainable tutoring program that helps youth achieve success. The tutoring program has been so successful that his team is exploring opportunities to expand their impact to include middle school students.
Rosie Westerbeck
Rosie Westerbeck of New Bremen, Ohio brings smiles to the faces of children and helps to ease the burden of their stay in hospitals through her Red Wagon Campaign.
Westerbeck joined forces with the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals to start a local Red Wagon Campaign to benefit youth served by Dayton Children’s Hospital. Through Westerbeck’s initiative, she collaborates with local businesses and schools to secure donations of arts and craft materials, toys and other fun items for children staying at the hospital. Westerbeck places red wagons throughout the community and in schools to collect donated items for the patients. In addition, she collects donations of little red wagons that not only help transport the donated materials to patients in the hospitals, but also helps transport children throughout the facility to receive their treatments.
Westerbeck started the Red Wagon Campaign because she had a desire to make a difference. As a result, Westerbeck’s initiative has not only filled a community need, but it has inspired other businesses and students to serve and give back their community.
Kirk Platt
Kirk Platt of Glen Burnie, Maryland is a hardworking volunteer who changes young people’s lives and the communities in which they live for the better through scouting.
Platt, chair of the Baltimore Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America‘s civic programs committee, has been an active adult scout for the past 12 years. In 2013, the Baltimore council honored him with the Silver Beaver award, the highest distinguished service award given out at the council level to individuals who have rendered noteworthy service of exceptional character to youth.
Known for his concern and compassion in regards to meeting the needs of others, Platt spearheads numerous efforts throughout his community. Each year for the Four River’s Scouting District, he organizes the Scouting for Food campaign, the Tree-mendous Maryland tree planting, the effort to decorate cemetery plots at the Crownsville Veterans Cemetery, and the Clean Sweep community cleanup efforts.
In addition to his involvement in scouting, Platt volunteers with March of Dimes and helps individuals with special needs through Volunteers for Medical Engineering, a group of volunteers who improve adaptive equipment for disabled children.
Platt has truly affected the Glen Burnie community by his strong care and concern for people.
Ben Gray
Ben Gray’s actions sparked his entire school district to eliminate the use of non-biodegradable polystyrene lunch trays. This past Earth Day, April 22, the entire Franklin Special School District in Franklin, Tennessee switched to reusable and biodegradable trays only.
Day after day during lunch, Gray, an eighth-grade student at Freedom Middle School in Franklin, noticed kids in his school throwing away the polystyrene cafeteria trays. Chloe, his fourth- grade sister, confirmed his suspicion that the same thing was happening at her elementary school and most likely at the other seven schools in the district.
As it turns out, Gray learned the school district’s cafeterias had used and disposed of roughly 220,000 trays this school year alone. The use of these trays just seemed wrong to him in an age of heightened environmental consciousness, so he decided to do something about it.
Gray felt that the use of the polystyrene trays conflicted with the other green initiatives sponsored by the school district and city. That was enough to spur Gray on his quest to find and implement an alternative way to serve school lunches. As a result, the school district began phasing out its current supply of polystyrene trays in favor of the washable and biodegradable trays. Moreover, on Earth Day, April 22, 2014, all of the school district’s meals were served on recyclable or compostable lunch trays, providing thousands of students with the same message taught in their classroom: reduce and recycle.
Ben Meyers
At 8 years old, Ben Meyers of Rancho Palos Verdes, California learned he had Type 1 diabetes. Now 17 years old, Meyers plays an active role in educating others about the disease as a youth ambassador and mentor for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF).
Meyers has dedicated countless hours to assisting nearby JDRF chapters with their efforts to secure and maintain funding to develop a cure for Type 1 diabetes. Additionally, Meyers has participated in public awareness campaigns and events, served as a mentor to youth newly diagnosed with the disease, and visited members of Congress to discuss Type 1 diabetes.
Meyers’s diagnosis with a potentially fatal, lifelong disease that requires daily maintenance and lifestyle modifications has never slowed him down. This past year, Meyers attended the Finding a Cure Gala hosted by the Los Angeles JDRF chapter where he shared his story with more than 600 guests.
With every speech Meyers makes, with every conversation he has with a newly diagnosed child and their family, and with every event where he puts a face to the disease, he and every other individual living with the disease comes closer to being able to say, “I once had Type 1 diabetes.”
Mongai Fankam
When Mongai Fankam of Charlotte, North Carolina was 3 years old, she began accompanying her mother to the Republic of Cameroon, a country in west central Africa. During her visits, Fankam would notice children walked miles to school carrying their books and school supplies in their hands. These children’s books were easily destroyed when it rained.
When she turned eight and entered third grade, Fankam launched the No Backpack Day Movement with the support of her elementary school. She launched this effort to raise awareness of the millions of youth around the world who do not have backpacks and have to walk to school each day carrying their school supplies in their hand. She challenged her entire school to come to school for a day without a backpack and carry their school supplies in their hands or in plastic bags. In addition, her school decided to offer additional support to the cause by donating backpacks and school supplies to kids in need.
By May 2012, eight schools had joined in this movement and donated more than 500 backpacks filled with school supplies. In the summer of 2012, Fankam, her mom, and some friends travelled to Cameroon to distribute these school bags. To date, more than 25 schools in North Carolina and Georgia have participated in this movement and they have donated more than 4,000 backpacks and school supplies to children in Cameroon and Sierra Leone.
Through this initiative, Fankam has been able to raise awareness of the more than 120 million children in the world who walk to school every day carrying their books and school supplies in their hands. In addition, her initiative has provided backpacks for children who are now able to attend school with dignity and respect along with certainty that the weather and other elements will not easily destroy their school supplies.
RAP River Run Committee
The RAP River Run is an annual 5K and 5-mile race held to help support and raise awareness for the RAP House Youth Shelter, a short-term youth shelter serving youth in Pasco County, Florida between the ages of 10-17. The committee is now in its seventh year of existence and has helped to raise more than $500,000 for the shelter.
In 2007, some core volunteer for the shelter decided to pull in some community constituents to discuss ways of raising needed dollars and awareness for the shelter. This initial group of individuals created the RAP River Run Committee in 2007 and it has been growing ever since. Currently, the race draws a little over 1,500 participants and spectators on race day, but more importantly has exposed the community to the issues faced by the youth served by the shelter, which in turn has sparked more interest and resources coming into the program.
Bonnie Avila
Bonnie Avila of Hanford, California has been volunteering at the Hacienda Rehabilitation and Health Care Center for the past thirty years rain or shine. Often, she is known to tote her guitar, banjo, or harmonic with her to play music for the residents. Avila is a caring and compassionate individual who shares her talents and gifts to alleviate some of loneliness that many elderly residents at the facility encounter.
William Winslow
William Winslow, an eight-year old from Raleigh, North Carolina, set up a community wide food drive to collect food for BackPack Buddies, an Inter-faith Food Shuttle program providing low-income students healthy meals on the weekend. Inter-Faith Food Shuttle is an innovative hunger-relief organization serving seven counties (Wake, Durham, Orange, Chatham, Johnston, Nash, and Edgecombe) in North Carolina.
In 2013, Winslow began collecting food instead of presents for his birthday. Soon, it led to him holding his first annual food drive where he collected 1,400 pounds of food and $305. This year, he completed his second food drive collecting 3,340 pounds of food and a little over $320.
