PCs for Youth

Access to computers can open the world for students and improve their classwork.

Several students in rural Indiana banded together to help their peers who did not have access to a computer in their home. They started PCs For Youth, a not for profit organization dedicated to providing the youth of LaGrange, Noble, Steuben, DeKalb, Elkhart, Kosciusko, and Whitley Counties with computers and knowledge about operating computers.

From donated office space to a volunteer Board of Directors, PCs For Youth functions with the help of local businesses and community members. The group accepts old computers and refurbishes them to make them suitable for students to use. Each computer donated includes a fully functional computer, a monitor, a mouse and keyboard.

To date, the organization has helped redistribute more than 200 PCs through partnerships with 45 schools in Indiana.

Kimberly Iverson

A career hospice care RN, Kimberly founded the Bucket List Foundation, a Scottsdale, AZ nonprofit which grants end-of-life or "bucket list" wishes to the terminally ill.

Some of the activities Kimberly and her group have arranged span the gamut from jaw-dropping adventures like swimming with dolphins or riding in helicopters, to meeting pro athletes, as well as arranging simple, heartfelt gatherings like anniversary dinners and reunions with family members. To date, her organization has helped grant more than 80 wishes for seniors.

Kimberly received National recognition in 2013 as a L'Oreal of Paris Woman of Worth for her philanthropic work with Arizona's senior community. She’s helping seniors live their lives to the fullest, putting their dreams within reach. That makes Kimberly Iverson a genuine Daily Point of Light.

LaRussa Family

Siblings Christina, Chris and Rachel LaRussa work with underprivileged children in their western New York community to help make the world a bigger place and open new doors through reading. The trio of siblings volunteer with Literacy Empowerment Action Plan of Western New York (LEAP of WNY), a nonprofit organization that fosters literacy.

Before they started volunteering with LEAP, the family actually used the program to help their youngest member, Rachel, bolster her reading skills. Now, the LaRussa kids – 15-year-old Christina, 13-year-old Christopher and 10-year-old Rachel – work with other young people on words and comprehension, teaching them to read out loud and to themselves, draw inferences from what they have read, and answer questions.

The children used their summer months to coordinate LEAP of WNY program activities at two libraries, the Julia Boyer Reinstein and the Anna Reinstein Memorial libraries in Cheektowaga, NY, reading to children and helping grow a very small collection of books through donations that yielded 800 books to fuel the imaginations of the young program participants.

According to the LaRussas, their experience with volunteering has introduced them to new friends, learn new skills, become more confident … and even learn to handle rejection when seeking book donations.

"You not only make someone else’s life better," the children say, "but you make your own life better by helping others."

Mary Gates

Mary Gates wears a smile on her face you can hear. “Sometimes all a person needs is a smile to help them get through their day. I can do that,” she says warmly.

Since 2006, she has been helping Detroit’s unemployed men and women dress for success from the inside, out. Through Jackets for Jobs, Inc., a nonprofit that provides low-income individuals with business appropriate attire for career success, Gates prepares her clients for job interviews by helping them look the part and talk the talk.

Retired from a career in customer service with AT&T, when she first heard about the organization through a former co-worker, she immediately felt motivated to contribute.

Gates assists about 120 job applicants every month. Her clients are mostly men, though sometimes she helps out with special events and with the women’s department. “I do attire. I measure them for their suit, shirt, pants, etc… and spend about 20-30 minutes per client,” Gates explains. “Once they get the suit on it’s like a light goes on. They’re empowered.”

Since its founding in 2000, Jackets for Jobs has helped over 15,000 clients achieve their job seeking goals through the organization’s training program in the Detroit area. “It’s important to wear clothes that fit well and are clean,” says Gates. “I tell my clients that when they go on job interviews, even before they start asking questions, they notice their appearance.”

She volunteers every day for 2-3 hours and always tells her clients to stay positive. “I encourage my clients and tell them, ‘don’t give up, keep the faith’,” says Gates.

When she’s not helping out at Jackets for Jobs, Gates, who is a wife, mother and grandmother, loves to travel, cook (her specialty: peach cobbler) and bowl. “At one time, I was in five different leagues,” she explains.

From teaching men how to tie a tie to helping women build self-esteem, Mary Gates, today’s Daily Point of Light Award recipient, is at her best when helping others become the best they can be. “I don’t do it for recognition,” Gates explains. “I’m glad I can help.”

Sophie Kartzman

A sixth-grader at Horseheads Intermediate School in upstate New York has captivated the spirit of her community during the holiday season, bringing a message of gratitude to military men and women serving abroad.

Sophie Kartzman initially began her project last year, when she and a friend made 100 greeting cards for the local chapter of the American Red Cross through their Holiday Mail for Heroes program. Seeing how the impact of this gesture could grow, Sophie raised the bar for her 2014 effort, establishing a goal to round up 1,000 greetings cards and enlisting the help of area businesses.

Her work drew attention from local media. People brought cards to drop-off points around town. Then Sophie visited a local adult care home and a book store to bring more volunteers into her effort. From there, social media chatter began to spread about the young girl and her goal. Cards began streaming in from all over, including local schools, schools in other states, church groups, and individuals. She received packages of greeting cards from as far away as Florida.

All told, Sophie’s efforts yielded more than 9,100 holiday greeting cards that the Red Cross will send to military servicemen and women overseas and to the local VA hospital in her community.

This precocious changemaker set a goal and rallied her community around a cause to show military members that others are thinking about their sacrifice. That makes Sophie Kartzman a Daily Point of Light. Who are the people in your community that are performing exceptional volunteer work for the greater good? Nominate someone for a Daily Point of Light Award at https://www.pointsoflight.org/programs/recognition/dpol/nomination

Neighbor Ride

Older adults are among the fastest growing population in the country. Providing for the transportation needs of the growing number of seniors who can no longer drive is essential to overcoming a key barrier to health care and ensuring the continued well-being and dignity of the elderly. One community in Columbia, MD has made the availability of flexible transportation options a priority, enabling seniors to readily access medical care and to participate in social activities that reduce isolation, adding meaning and quality to their lives.

Neighbor Ride's volunteers have been serving the transportation needs of Howard County's older residents, age 60 and over, since 2004. Over the past decade, the original team of 20 volunteers has grown to more than 330, all committed to helping seniors stay active, independent and connected to their community. Since it began, Neighbor Ride has facilitated more than 92,000 trips for local seniors. And in the past year alone, volunteers pitched in a combined 20,069 hours of service and 132,740 miles of driving.

Neighbor Ride’s volunteer-driven transportation is provided with ongoing support from many partners in the community, spanning policy authorities, local businesses and civic organizations. The effort demonstrates how entities including the Howard County Office on Aging, the Volunteer Center Serving Howard County, the Howard County Office of Transportation, the Maryland Transit Administration, Howard County General Hospital, the Columbia Association, the Shelter Group, the Coalition of Geriatric Services, the Howard County Public School System, Winter Growth and others, can all work together. The Neighbor Ride program is sustained financially with ongoing funding from local and state grant programs, community foundations, individual and corporate donations, and other sources.

They drive so seniors can thrive. That makes Neighbor Ride a Daily Point of Light. Who are the people and organizations in your community that are performing exceptional volunteer work for the greater good? Nominate someone for a Daily Point of Light Award at https://www.pointsoflight.org/programs/recognition/dpol/nomination

Junior Auxiliary of Slidell

The Space Race of the 1960s turned Slidell, Louisiana into a classic boomtown, thanks to the Michoud Saturn Rocket installation. Slidell, located on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain in St. Tammany Parish, boasted a population of 6,300 back in 1960. By 1965, the city's headcount had doubled to 13,000.

Amid this growth, many women were anxious to make a place for themselves in order to help their community progress, as well as shed off the feeling of being newcomers. So they created a service organization, dedicating their efforts to help disadvantaged children, teens, families, and elderly in the Slidell community through projects that improve quality of life.

Junior Auxiliary of Slidell has served the community for more than forty years, providing educational support through volunteerism, fundraising, original projects, and community networking for women and children living in poverty. Today, the Junior Auxiliary of Slidell is a not-for-profit organization comprised of some 50 women who continue the tradition of those who served before them. Last year, Junior Auxiliary of Slidell volunteers cumulatively served 1,800 hours, helping more than 11,000 people in the Slidell area, with a primary focus on serving children.

The organization meets the needs of the community by maintaining a cooperative relationship with educational and civic leaders, working with local agencies and creating its own service projects. From a mentor program that helps high school juniors develop leadership and communication skills to programming that teaches children how to make healthy food choices, the charitable work of Junior Auxiliary of Slidell helps meet the needs of the community year-round.

Share the stories of exceptional volunteers in your community doing good for the greater good. Submit a Daily Point of Light Award nomination to help lift up a changemaker near you. Go to https://www.pointsoflight.org/programs/recognition/dpol/nomination.

Megan Pennington

She wants to do only one thing with her music: change lives. Megan Pennington directs The Gold Tones Choir, a group comprised of high school, college and adult volunteers ages 14 and up that sings for different charities and organization in and around the Pittsburgh area, spreading joy and hope through music.

Megan has taken the choir to sing for events hosted by the American Diabetes Association, The Children's Hospital, The Light of Life, The Residence at Weinberg Village, American Cancer Society and other groups. The nine Gold Tones singers also roll up their sleeves to help the community, raising money to advance the missions for the organizations where they have performed.

Growing up in a low-income family, Megan remembers the struggles her parents had to go through just to make ends meet. She found her safe haven in music, first becoming a charity choir director when she as a high school senior. Megan wanted to organize a singing group that would go out into the community and sing to inspire others and make a difference. She wanted to give those in need the same sense of peace and safety that she derived from music.

"Music is a universal language,” says Megan. “No matter the cause or the reason, the language or the culture, music can bring masses together and raise the spirits of just about anyone. Why would I want to keep my musical talents hidden and not share it with those around me?"

She puts her lyrical talents to use as a volunteer, providing encouragement and lifting up other partners in the community to keep up their great work. That makes Megan Pennington a Daily Point of Light. To nominate someone in your community doing exceptional volunteer work, visit https://www.pointsoflight.org/programs/recognition/dpol/nomination.

Deva Dee Siliee

On International Volunteer Day, Points of Light salutes the work of people doing exceptional volunteer work abroad to make the world a better place. Meet Deva-Dee Siliee, today’s Daily Point of Light honoree, and learn about her efforts in Curaçao to mobilize volunteers.

Her conversation about citizen action began around a coffee table in New York.

That’s where Deva-Dee Siliee remembers talking about what citizens could do to contribute to the sustainable development of her birthplace, the island of Curaçao, which had just achieved constitutional status as a country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. A U.S. resident and Columbia University grad, Deva had traveled the world and seen in places like the Netherlands, France and Tanzania the common denominator she knew she could apply in Curaçao: people who wanted to help simply needed volunteer opportunities that were accessible.

She and her friend Lysayé de Windt had witnessed how New York Cares had made community service accessible to millions of people from all walks of life in New York, and thought, “it must be possible to make this happen on an island of 150,000 people”. They set out to create a platform that could connect citizen volunteers with community needs, modeled after the HandsOn network in the U.S. Together with Lysayé ,Deva co-founded Curaçao Cares in 2012.

According to Deva and Lysayé, “Through volunteerism, we want to foster understanding and facilitate crucial exchanges between citizens from all walks of life, in order to cultivate stronger communities composed of caring and committed citizens that put their time, skills, talent and resources to use to elevate the quality of life on the island.”

Within a year, some 4,650 people – including employees from nearly 90 different companies – volunteered with Curaçao Cares projects, helping with more than 100 unique projects, including the revitalization of a dozen schools on the island. All told, the 30,000 cumulative volunteer hours given is estimated to have contributed $500,000 in economic value to Curaçao.

“Our job is to bring people together,” Deva explains, “and I think we’ve been able to bridge some gaps and get people from all walks of life connected through our various projects.”

The effort has even attracted attention from Curaçao’s policymakers, starting more dialog about national volunteer policy. Curaçao’s largest volunteer effort, CURA DOET, similar to national volunteer days in the United States, received support from the Minister of Social Affairs.

Asked why people should volunteer, Deva answers enthusiastically "Because change begins with you!”

Kathie Rife

The atmosphere suggests top-shelf dining, with linen tablecloths, nice plates and tableware, and service that always comes with a smile.

What else would one expect from a soup kitchen that provides hot meals to the elderly, the homeless, the unemployed, the underemployed, and those seeking a little companionship? That’s the restaurant-caliber vision for Soup Angels in Nyack, NY, the volunteer organization started 9 years ago by Kathie Rife and her co-founders.

It began as a local soup kitchen with service on Sunday evenings. But Kathie felt that while Sunday Supper was meeting a real need, there were still people that were going hungry during the week. She felt compelled to fill that need. So Kathie began the Wednesday night edition of the soup dinner, feeding less than a dozen people that first night.

Now, Kathie and her band of Soup Angels regularly provide 80 to 100 meals on Wednesdays, and have even expanded their program to include a Monday night meal. At the conclusion of each meal, Soup Angels guests are welcome to take home a sandwich and salad for the next day.

Recent reports stated that there are more than 43,000 people living below the poverty level in Rockland County NY. Over half those people do not qualify for federal nutrition programs and must rely on charitable food assistance programs. Soup Angels is an all-volunteer organization supported by local restaurants, grocery stores and corporate sponsors. Soup Angels volunteers contribute in many ways, from shopping and cooking to serving meals and doing administrative work. Kathie and her group actively raise money and spread the word about the need and their work by exhibiting at local street fairs.

Kathie brought her vision for a top-shelf dining experience to hungry people in need, serving hope and strengthening the bonds of her community. That makes Kathie a Daily Point of Light. Do you know someone like Kathie that is leading by example in the community where you live? Submit a nomination today at https://www.pointsoflight.org/programs/recognition/dpol/nomination.