Benjamin Pohl

As we celebrate National Volunteer Week – sponsored by Advil® – meet Daily Point of Light Award winner Benjamin Pohl. Read his story and nominate someone you know as a Daily Point of Light.

In March 1997, a catastrophe changed Benjamin Pohl’s life. But today he insists the change was for the better.

Two weeks before his 18th birthday, Pohl, of Chicago was in a car accident that nearly killed him. He suffered multiple fractures, including a broken back, and severe internal injuries. A doctor in the emergency room said he didn’t expect Pohl to survive the night.

Pohl lay in a coma for a month. Finally, he regained consciousness.

“It was very scary,” says Pohl. “I had no idea where I was, and I couldn’t remember anything about the accident.”

Pohl spent six months in the hospital learning how to speak and walk again, and two more years in outpatient therapy. Gradually, he began leading a normal life. With encouragement and support from his parents, Pohl completed his final high school credits and, in 1999, entered college at the University of Iowa – while still walking with crutches. He had once dreamed of a career practicing military law with the Judge Advocate General Corps, but now he wanted to major in recreation therapy so he could assist people with disabilities.

“My entire perspective changed during my rehabilitation,” says Pohl. “I’ve been 100 percent dependent on other people, and now I feel a unique bond with people who have disabilities. I have a level of empathy that few can understand.”

After earning his degree, Pohl worked for the next two years as a recreational therapist at a maximum-security prison and a mental health facility. He discovered his real love – volunteerism – when he moved north, to suburban DuPage County, Ill., in 2006 and began volunteering at the Western DuPage Special Recreation Association, where he accompanied kids with disabilities on fun outings to ball games, bowling alleys, restaurants and more. A favorite with clients, Pohl has kept up his relationship with the association over the years, sometimes as a volunteer and sometimes as a part-time staffer. 

In 2007, Pohl entered graduate school at Northern Illinois University, where he graduated in the top 10 percent of his class with a master’s degree in public administration. He then joined the Peace Corps and spent a year in Jordan, where he trained teachers in special education, with an emphasis on promoting awareness and acceptance of children with disabilities.

Today, Pohl works one week a month for a tech firm in Iowa, and hopes to start a full-time career working for the government in public administration. For three weeks of each month, he spends most of his time back in DuPage County volunteering for a variety of organizations.

While his volunteer credentials are too numerous to mention, he currently serves on the board of directors of the DuPage County Habitat for Humanity. He also does volunteer development work for Celebrating Differences, a group that serves children with Down syndrome. Pohl also volunteers as a journalist, writing newsletters and promotional materials, for Easter Seals.

“After my accident, I had a lot of help, and it’s my way to give back,” says Pohl. “I pretty much came back from the dead. I was given a second chance, and I feel an obligation to help others have equal opportunities. It’s my passion and it makes me feel good. It’s an intrinsic high to help people.”

The Leali Family

As we celebrate National Volunteer Week – sponsored by Advil® – meet Daily Point of Light Award winning-Leali family. Read their story and nominate someone you know as a Daily Point of Light.

Walk past the Leali home in New Orleans and you’ll notice a large wooden structure with glass doors near the sidewalk. Locals say it resembles a giant birdhouse or a miniature, old-fashioned schoolhouse. Stocked with 50 to 80 books and bearing a sign that reads, “Take a Book. Return a Book,” the mini-building is the Little Free Library 8-year-old Nikki Leali founded.

Since 2012, the always-open facility has allowed kids and adults in the neighborhood to browse, select and – if they wish – keep books of interest to them.

When Nikki was 6, she and her family heard that Little Free Libraries were cropping up in neighborhoods throughout New Orleans. The idea was originally started as a nonprofit by two social entrepreneurs in Hudson, Wis., and was spreading nationally and even internationally.

New Orleans is a city especially concerned with the problem of childhood literacy. The Public Library Foundation estimates that 44 percent of city residents are functionally illiterate and that many children have never owned a book. Illiteracy is linked to crime, unemployment and poverty.

To start her own Little Free Library, Nikki personally applied for and received a grant to do so from a local church. Later, the mayor’s office gave Nikki additional funding and a Boy Scout troop volunteered to help build Nikki’s front-yard library.

According to Nikki’s mom, Joelle, as many as 100 people a day visit the family library, and often 50 books a week will be kept by visitors, which has prompted the family to participate in book drives to replenish the library inventory.

Last year, Nikki held a book drive on Global Youth Service Day, held over a weekend in April. She brought in 1,900 books, which she used to stock her own library and help the more than 20 Little Free Libraries throughout New Orleans. Nikki is now preparing for her second drive for Global Youth Service Day, April 11 to 13 this year.

Nikki also received a grant from Disney Friends For Change to hold a book donating and swapping party and to purchase books. In addition, Nikki has received book donations from the Friends of the New Orleans Public Library, the nonprofit KaBOOM!, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and Barnes & Noble holiday book drive. Several local bookstores have also provided donations.

While Nikki is the head librarian of the family, she is assisted by her twin sister Josie, sister Jenna, 11, and by her parents, Joelle and Robert.

“My favorite part is putting out the books and decorating the library for the season,” says Nikki. “I’m very happy with the library because a lot of kids don’t get many books of their own, and here they are free.”

Joelle says she is amazed at how much the library has meant to the family: “We get more out of it than we give. We love helping the community, but you should see the smiles on our daughters’ faces when someone takes a book.”

Richard Ryffel

As we celebrate National Volunteer Week, meet Daily Point of Light Award winner Rich Ryffel. Read his story and nominate someone you know as a Daily Point of Light.

Rich Ryffel was introduced to the nonprofit Beyond Housing – and volunteerism in general – through a business colleague. Since 1999, he has been a fixture on Beyond Housing’s board, working tirelessly to recruit board members, promoting the organization through regular speaking engagements and overseeing some of the group’s most successful new programs.

Founded in 1975, Beyond Housing has worked to help low-income families secure affordable housing and to prevent foreclosures. In more recent years, it has expanded it mission to improve the overall quality of life in communities it serves.

“I started volunteering 15 years ago serendipitously,” says Ryffel, an executive with JPMorgan Chase. “If I had it to do all over again, I’d start sooner. If I win the lottery tomorrow, I’ll become a full-time volunteer.”

Ryffel just completed four years as board chair of Beyond Housing, and is sitting out for a year from the board because of term limits. During his tenure as chair, Beyond Housing produced or acquired more than 100 housing units, built a senior housing facility, established a grocery store in an area where residents previously had to travel three miles to shop for food and helped to open the first bank in 50 years in a depressed area of St. Louis County.

Ryffel also launched Beyond Housing’s “24:1” economic development initiative to serve St. Louis County’s Normandy School District, which comprises 24 municipalities and has a population of around 50,000. The district faces serious economic, education and housing problems. By bringing residents and town mayors together to determine the specific needs of the Normandy district, Beyond Housing was able to secure $3 million dollars for development projects in the district over the next five years.

Of all the projects he has overseen at Beyond Housing, Ryffel says he is proudest of helping to open the grocery store, located in the Normandy School District town of Pagedale.

“These people had nowhere nearby to shop for groceries, and developers thought it was not economically viable to open a store,” says Ryffel. “That means the area was what we call a ‘food desert.’ I happened to meet a man from the discount food store chain Save a Lot and asked him about Pagedale. He was interested. Beyond Housing had to buy the land with grants, and financing was very difficult, but two years later the store opened and is doing well.”

The new Save a Lot store is located close to a senior center. To serve other Pagedale residents, Beyond Housing was able to arrange bus service to the store.

In his 15 years working with Beyond Housing, Ryffel says he has done just about everything, from working behind to scenes as a fundraiser to operating Bobcat heavy equipment to turning out on the group’s annual father/daughter day to help renovate houses purchased by the organization.

“I love helping in any way I can,” says Ryffel. “I always think of the story of the man who finds a beach covered with stranded starfish. He starts throwing them back into the ocean. Another man sees him and says, ‘There are too many. You can’t help.’ The first man holds up a starfish and says, ‘I can make a difference for this one.’ That’s how I feel. I can’t change the world, but that’s no excuse not to change a life.”

Rocsi Diaz

For helping kids stay in school and reaching out to her community in various ways, television personality Rocsi Diaz received a Daily Point of Light Award in Los Angeles. The ceremony was part of the One America campaign, led by Points of Light and Chase, to unite people in volunteer service. As we also celebrate National Volunteer Week, read Diaz’s story and nominate someone you know as a Daily Point of Light.

Known for her charismatic personality and winning smile, Rocsi Diaz has become popular with millions of television viewers as co-host of “Entertainment Tonight” and formerly of BET’s “106 & Park.” Behind the camera, and the smile, is a deep commitment to social and humanitarian causes.

Diaz spends much of her time volunteering for a wide variety of organizations and even launched her own foundation, RocStar, to help rebuild and repair public schools in New Orleans after the area was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Along with other popular figures such as basketball legend Magic Johnson and actor Hugh Jackman, Diaz is an active participant in Get Schooled, an organization that uses the media and celebrity ambassadors to help inspire and empower kids nationwide to finish high school and go to college.

Diaz, who grew up in New Orleans, launched the RocStar Foundation after learning that thousands of children in the city were unable to return to public schools that had been damaged or destroyed by Katrina.

“There were many charities helping in New Orleans after the hurricane, but it wasn’t always clear to me how the money would be used,” says Diaz. “I wanted to start an organization and guarantee that all the money raised would go to helping schools.”

Working through RocStar, Diaz and celebrity friends raised more than $250,000 for the foundation’s first project: rebuilding Diaz’s alma mater, West Jefferson High School, which had served as many as 6,000 students before it was destroyed by the storm. Diaz contributed everything from money and moral support to physical labor as the school was rebuilt.

“It was amazing going back, along with (NBA star) Alonzo Mourning, to help my old school,” says Diaz. “I cried. I just like knowing that the place where I have so many good memories is still up and running and will be providing good memories for new generations of kids.”

The RocStar Foundation later gave college scholarships to some West Jefferson students and has subsequently funded repairs to several other New Orleans schools.

In 2011, Diaz got involved with Get Schooled when the group’s foundation partnered with New York City to create the Wake Up! NYC campaign to fight truancy and chronic absenteeism in the public schools. Diaz and other celebrities recorded personal “wake-up calls” for students. When the program was launched, 6,500 students with attendance problems in 25 target schools began to receive the calls each morning.

“It’s cool,” says Diaz. “They hear me saying, ‘Wake up, get out of bed and get to school on time!’ The kids love getting a wake-up call from their favorite celebrity. They tweet me and say, ‘Was that really you?’”

Through Get Schooled, Diaz has also traveled to cities throughout the country to speak to thousands of middle school and high school students about the importance of education. In Los Angeles, at an event sponsored by Get Schooled and the chamber of commerce, she spoke to thousands of graduating high school seniors and their parents about how to apply for state grants for college.

“Education is by far the most important issue,” says Diaz, who has visited troops through the USO and supports animal rights and women’s health organizations. “I want to do everything I can to encourage youth to stay in school and go to college. If we put enough energy into it, I think there’s no limit to what we can accomplish.”

Michelle Sollicito

Today Points of Light Chairman Neil Bush will present Michelle Sollicito of Marietta, Ga., with a Daily Point of Light Award – during a 25th anniversary celebration of President George H. W. Bush’s presidency in College Station, Texas. President and Barbara Bush will be on hand to recognize the longtime volunteer. As we also look ahead to National Volunteer Week, April 6-12, read Sollicito’s story and nominate someone you know as a Daily Point of Light.

When a snowstorm swept across Atlanta in January, leaving thousands of motorists stuck in their cars for hours, longtime community volunteer Michelle Sollicito did what came naturally.

Sollicito, a web developer and old hand at using social media for community organizing, worked quickly with two other volunteers to launch the Facebook group SnowedOutAtlanta. It featured an interactive map, created by fellow volunteer Jelena Crawford, that enabled stranded commuters to post their exact positions via mobile phone, allowing them to connect to online users who could help.

The Facebook page went live at 4:20 p.m. on Jan. 28, the day of the storm. By midnight, more than 29,000 people had joined the group and more than 400 had been rescued or helped by other SnowedOutAtlanta users.

“The requests for help were varied,” says Sollicito. “Shortly after we were online, it was getting dark. People had already been stranded in their cars for hours. Some needed baby formula or diapers or medication, others needed their batteries charged, and some simply needed a warm place to spend the night.”

By the next day, 53,000 people had joined the group, and Facebook contacted Sollicito to tell her that the group was growing too rapidly for its servers to handle. The social networking site asked her to break SnowedOutAtlanta into smaller groups, which she did – dividing Atlanta from north to south, east to west, and adding suburbs.

SnowedOutAtlanta provided information about companies that were providing emergency shelter, such as Home Depot, and about citizens who were opening their homes up to those in need. It also let people know where they could get gasoline, have their car batteries charged or receive other essential services.

Sollicito and her family took in a man who had been stranded in traffic for 12 hours. He stayed the night.

“Neither he nor his wife could pick up their kids from school,” says Sollicito. “He finally learned that the school principal had driven the kids home. Many teachers and principals stayed at their schools until past midnight to make sure kids got home safely.”

By the time a second snowstorm hit Atlanta on Feb. 11, representatives of the state legislature, mayor’s office and utility companies, along with emergency responders, had joined Sollicito’s Facebook group. This time, thousands of Atlanta-area residents got help via SnowedOutAtlanta. For her life-saving efforts, Sollicito was honored by the Cobb County School District and presented an award at an Atlanta Hawks basketball game.

“It felt overwhelming,” says Sollicito. “Some in the media have tried to make me into a superhero. That’s a bit unreal because I couldn’t have done anything without the 50,000 friends who responded. I simply empowered them. Thousands of people have contacted me. Some have offered me gifts. I tell them to ‘pay it forward’ instead – to help others in the community.”

SnowedOutAtlanta was not Sollicito’s first experience in community service or her first use of social media outreach. Seven years ago, after her two children were born, she launched Marietta Moms – originally a website and now a Facebook group with more than 250 members – to connect mothers in Marietta and allow them to share information and resources online. According to Sollicito, Marietta Moms has a special mission to help low-income mothers, by helping them find jobs, affordable goods, entertainment and educational opportunities for their kids.

“I grew up with a single mom who worked three jobs,” says Sollicito, who volunteers daily as a reader in school classrooms. “I know what it’s like to be poor. It’s not your fault. I’m very lucky to have a successful career today, and I am committed to helping those who are struggling.”

Stacey Hoaglund

Stacey Hoaglund of Cooper City , Florida is dedicated to increasing awareness of the Autism Spectrum Disorder. She creates a culture and awareness that it takes a village. Her inexhaustible energy allows her to engage parents through trainings and support groups, and equip them with the tools they need to advocate for the educational and medical needs of their children.

In addition, Hoaglund provides training for organizations such as the YMCA and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, which enables them to offer more of their services to children with autism. She has created recreational programs for autistic children that include field day events, sensory friendly movie days, surfing, and golfing. She has initiated autism resolutions with school boards and commissioners, coordinated art-project exhibitions at the state level, and written countless articles for publications such as the Autism Notebook.

Hoaglund possesses the gift of bringing people together for a greater cause. She empowers everyone she touches through a positive and collaborative approach; encouraging the input and participation of all community members, as they come to realize they each have something wonderful to bring to the fight for autism. Hoaglund’s passion is infectious and all inspiring. Those who know Hoaglund define her service as extraordinary in that she has dedicated her life to serving various autism causes. Inspired from her personal challenges of raising a son diagnosed with autism in 1997, her passion in bringing awareness is limitless, which keeps her at the forefront of the movement.

Kristen Lee

In 2011, Kristen Lee of Lewisville, Texas learned her father had a rare cancer, head and neck Neuroblastoma. Instead of crying and feeling sorry for her family, Lee, just 12-years old at the time, decided she wanted to do something beneficial for cancer patients.

As a result, she worked with her mother to organize and hold a garage sale. Right away, Lee started emailing friends and family to donate their gently used items for a sale in her backyard. Within days, friends and family began leaving donations on her porch, resulting in mounds and mounds of items for the sale.

Lee used the items to hold her first garage sale. She collected over $5,000 during her first sale. The second year, Lee enlisted three of her best friends to join her in the soon to be annual endeavor, and they raised over $8,000. Additionally, this past year they organized a third garage sale, bringing in $15,000. All the proceeds went to the American Cancer Society in a shoebox, which they earmarked for cancer research. This August, Lee and her friends are planning to hold their fourth annual sale and have a fundraising goal of $20,000.

Now, the entire community comes out in full force to help Lee with her garage sale. A garage sale that started as a small sale in her parent’s garage has now blossomed to a huge community annual event that needs storage units for all the donations. People now donate to Lee throughout the year, and it is an expected and annual event.

Each year, more and more people are diagnosed with cancer. In Lee’s neighborhood alone, she knows over 11 families with someone battling cancer, which is why she is choosing to dedicate her time to helping the research department of the American Cancer Society. In addition, Lee led a team at her local Relay for Life event, an annual fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. She and her team raised $15,000, totaling her donation to over $45,000 to the American Cancer Society in three years. Lee’s donations go towards cancer research, wigs, and transportation for patients getting to and from treatments.

Lee has always been one to want to help others. It started when she held a lemonade stand for a family whose house burned down. Then another year, a family friend’s husband died of cancer and she had held a lemonade stand to raise money for the family. Although those sales only raised $100, the looks on the recipients’ faces and the tears in their eyes that a little girl would do this, let Lee know that she loved to help people.

Rebecca Duda

Since becoming an eight-grade teacher in 2004, Rebecca Duda of Dracut, Massachusetts continues to demonstrate through her service to students what it means to be a lifelong learner.

Duda, an educator for Dracut Public Schools at Lakeview Junior High School, serves well beyond her duties as a teacher. She acts as an advisor and coordinator for several student clubs and programs including the National History Club, Model United Nations, Geography Club, and the school talent show. When available, she partakes in professional development opportunities including programs with the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute and the George Washington Institute at Mount Vernon. She has received several honors for her dedication to education including the Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award in 2009, the Outstanding History Club Advisor Award from the National History Club in 2011, and recognition for Student Excellence in Cultural Heritage by the Lowell National Park Service in 2011.

In addition to Duda’s many professional development opportunities and advisory roles, she is creative in her approach to teaching history in the classroom. Duda has brought the Holocaust to a vivid reality through a speaker, a Holocaust survivor. John Adams became a real person via the Boston Public Library. World War II was a living dramatization presented by Veteran’s Day speakers.

As far as community service, Duda has engaged students to assist with restoring Dracut’s oldest burial ground, the Claypit Cemetery. Working in conjunction with the Civil War Preservation Trust, Duda organized and supervised students in raising money to help protect land at Harper’s Ferry, a vital Civil War battle site. She led her history club students in a fundraiser to collect donations for the Lawrence Civil War Memorial Guard to help restore the Needham Memorial. All of these endeavors have proven success not just in funds raised, but also in demonstrating to her students the importance of preserving local history.

Many of Duda’s colleagues find it impossible to describe the number of extra hours and dedication that she has given to Lakeview Junior High School, and its students and community. However, they do agree that Duda embodies all the qualities and characteristics of a talented, knowledgeable, and wonderful teacher and human being.