Danielle Lindquist of Cary, North Carolina has spent the past 23 years, falling in love with animals. During high school, she volunteered every weekend at our local animal shelter if she was not already working at the local pet store. This passion carried her on to college, where she chose veterinary medicine as her career. Lindquist has worked every weekend, holiday and break since she was sixteen at her job as a veterinary assistant, caring for patients overnight during emergency shifts, cleaning kennels and consoling grieving clients.
Lindquist has always had a heart bigger than her chest could carry, leading her to start C.A.R.E. NC (Canine Assisted Rehabilitation for the Elderly of North Carolina) during her senior year as a pre-veterinary student at North Carolina State University. The C.A.R.E. NC program is a non-profit that dedicates its mission to improving the adoptability of shelter dogs, and training them to become therapeutic visitors for local assisted living facilities.
Along with a veterinarian, an animal behaviorist and professional dog trainer, Lindquist set up a working partnership among them with a common goal to gives pre-veterinary students the opportunity to work with shelter dogs that are waiting for a new home, and bring them to local assisted living facilities every week to meet the residents. These residents, many of whom had to give up their own dog when moving in to an assisted living facility, get the opportunity to be loved by a dog again.
Lindquist has dedicated the past two years to transforming shelter dogs into therapeutic visitors for local seniors. In this way, she and the C.A.R.E. NC team are able to fulfill a two-fold mission of increasing the likelihood of adoption for shelter dogs while motivating senior citizens through the healing power of pets.
Tess Reiman
When Tess Reiman of Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida discovered she was too young to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity to build houses, she was determined to identify other ways to help families in need served by the organization.
Reiman began researching other ways she could help Habitat for Humanity families. Soon, she learned through BookSpring’s Reading is Fundamental (RIF) program that 61 percent of low-income families have no age-appropriate books at all in their homes for their children. In addition, she learned that many of the children do not have books for their new Habitat for Humanity homes.
As a result, Reiman started Project Storybook in the summer of 2012 to provide a basket of new books to children when they move into their Habitat for Humanity home. In a little over a year, she had raised enough money to present approximately 200 new books to roughly 40 Habitat families on their move-in day.
Today, Reiman has grown Project Storybook from a donation of books to one preschooler through Beaches Habitat for Humanity in Atlantic Beach, Florida to partnerships with Habitat of St Augustine and Habitat Orlando. Additionally, Reiman is tirelessly working to secure books for less than suggested retail prices so that her fundraising dollars go farther leading her to collaborate with First Book, a non-profit organization based out of Washington D.C. that works towards getting new “age appropriate” books into the hands of children from low-income families.
Lucille McCarthy
Since the mid-1940s, Lucille O. McCarthy has been a faithful member and volunteer of the Disabled American Veterans Auxiliary (DAVA). McCarthy’s involvement in DAVA began when her husband, John C. McCarthy, became disabled after serving in France and Belgium during World War II.
In the 1960s, McCarthy became DAVA’s youngest national commander. Since then, she has held many national offices and volunteered in Veterans Health Administration facilities in Nebraska, Massachusetts, New York, Florida, and Washington DC.
At the age of 92, McCarthy still held a DAVA national office while also serving as her state’s advisor and financial committee member until her recent hospitalization in the fall of 2013. McCarthy has been active in the DAVA for approximately 67 years, and continues to make DAVA a viable service organization.
Philip Stump
Philip C. Stump has donated hundreds of hours on an annual basis serving the residents of Montgomery Township, Pennsylvania as a volunteer firefighter. As a volunteer firefighter, Stump has help provide the township with fire protection and fire safety education.
Montgomery Township is approximately ten square miles and is located in Montgomery County. The township is densely populated and loaded with various industrial businesses. Stump and the other volunteers have been instrumental in providing fire protection to the residents and businesses in Montgomery Township, while keeping the cost of these operations at a minimum. Through various community events, Stump and the department continue to educate the township's youth in fire safety. He responds to emergency calls and finished in the top five for number of responses from 2006-2009.
Moreover, Stump participates in community events. He has served as a lieutenant, captain, vice president and head trustee for the organization. He is always willing to help with in-house projects and training.
Over the years, Stump has donated hundreds of hours annually to the committee – responding to calls at all hours of the day, evening, and staying overnight in the firehouse at least on a weekly basis in order to ensure a timely response in times of need.
He is a truly dedicated, dynamic individual committed to service.
Jennifer Steiner
When Jennifer Steiner’s family moved to a new neighborhood, she was surprised to see no recycling bins in front of houses. Eleven years old at the time, she learned about recycling in elementary school and knew its importance to the environment.
Jennifer Steiner holds one of the
recycling bins used in her area.
It turned out that recycling service and bins were available through the local garbage disposal company, but residents of the Parker, Colo., community had not been informed. After her own family received a bin, Steiner felt inspired to educate the community and launched her own door-to-door campaign, One Small Step, to encourage people to start recycling.
Steiner offered to order and pick up bins for neighbors. The local garbage company, Waste Management, charged a fee for the bins – $15 for two if the homeowner picked up the bins or an extra $15 to have them delivered. Steiner even got Waste Management’s permission to collect the fees herself and deliver checks to the company. Some neighbors couldn’t afford bins. Steiner told them they could recycle nonetheless and provided them with recycling stickers to affix to other types of containers.
“I tell people that any effort helps,” says Steiner. “Anyone who puts out a bin or even a cardboard box can make a real difference by recycling.”
Steiner, now 18, has personally persuaded hundreds of families to recycle – and she and her mother have delivered more than 100 recycling bins to community members – but her efforts have had a far broader reach. Soon after she began One Small Step, her school principal allowed her to speak to students about the need for recycling. Steiner personally trained 30 students in how to start recycling programs in their own neighborhoods.
In 2009, the county asked Steiner if she’d appear in a public service announcement to promote recycling. The PSA, which ran on Douglas County Television for two years, reached a potential audience of 300,000. (Watch it here.)
“It’s a lot of work,” says Steiner. “Between soccer practice and school, and having family and personal time, it’s been a challenge to also work on One Small Step. But it’s worth it to me because I’m passionate about it.”
Steiner has received several awards for her community service. She has been honored by the mayor and county council. This year, in the state-by-state Prudential Spirit of the Community Awards for volunteerism, Steiner received Colorado’s Bronze Medal.
“Colorado is beautiful no matter what season it is, and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else,” says Steiner. “I’m proud to know I have made a difference and can continue to do so. It gives me peace of mind to take care of a place where I love to live.”
As she looks ahead to college, Steiner says she hopes she will have the chance to start a recycling program on her campus, and hopes the work she has done she has done in Parker will continue.
Brett Jones
Brett Jones of Ogden, Utah is passionate about providing educational opportunities to disadvantaged youth. Since 2000, Jones has performed such a great deal of community service that it has now become a way of life for him.
Recently, Jones, who served almost three years in the Peace Corps, worked with fellow Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCV) from Kyrgyzstan to form the Corey Hilber Memorial Scholarship Fund in response to the tragic, early death on December 15, 2012 of Corey James Hilber, a fellow Peace Corps volunteer. The scholarship fund honors Hilber’s memory in the same way that he lived his life: by helping other people and paying opportunity forward into the world.
Jones’s involvement with the fund includes overseeing fund raising, web design, scholarship applications, interviews, and disbursement of donor incentives to the fund. To date, Jones and his team have raised $22,978, and the scholarship has already sent two Kyrgyz students to elite private schools In the Talas province of the Kyrgyz Republic. This scholarship will pay for all their tuition and living expenses for five years.
While in the Peace Corps, Jones taught English, worked as a teacher trainer, and worked with the American Bishkek Embassy’s Tech Age Girls to train young female students in the area of computer technology and leadership. While in the Kyrgyz Republic, he also organized a conference, set up a printing press to address the lack of books for children in the area, wrote and obtained grants, and wrote three textbooks.
To this day, Jones continues to work on the Corey Hilber Memorial Scholarship fund. Additionally, he is involved with AmeriCorps, where he runs a Playworks Program in a Title 1 school providing a structured recess program. He leads “Class Game Times” with every class in the school to help them learn games as well as pro-social behaviors such as conflict resolution and community building values.
Chela Moody
Chela Moody of Martinsville, Indiana does a lot for the homeless population as well as anyone else she feels she can help. Moody spends every Thursday serving the homeless at a soup kitchen. Often, she is one of the first volunteers to arrive at the soup kitchen and the last to leave. In addition, she distributes vital survival items including food, blankets and clothing to Indianapolis homeless individuals living on the streets. Each visit, she stays out distributing items until volunteers have passed out every item. She has even given away her own gloves before.
Drew Vanderford
As a WATCH D.O.G.S. (Dads of Great Students) volunteer, Drew Vanderford helps youth achieve success at Clark Elementary School in Paducah, Kentucky.
Clark Elementary houses a KIDS Company I Family Resource Center, an initiative of the Kentucky Family Resource and Youth Service Centers established to enhance student success in schools. In an effort to increase male role models, the resource center implemented the National Center for Fathering’s WATCH D.O.G.S program at Clark Elementary.
Vanderford started volunteering with the school’s WATCH D.O.G.S. program last year for two days each week although volunteers are only required to serve one day a week. This year, Vanderford happily added another day to his volunteer workload thereby increasing his service to three days a week because so many teachers were asking for his assistance.
Through WATCH D.O.G.S, Vanderford works mainly with kindergartners on academic skills to increase their reading comprehension and become better students. He supports teachers’ efforts and is willing to work one-on-one with any child who needs extra attention.
KIDS Company staff regards Vanderford as a selfless, dependable and dedicated volunteer who excels at working with all children regardless of academic level or age. While volunteering at Clark Elementary, Vanderford has had to undergo major surgeries. However, he has not let health issues impede is involvement at the school and continues to work with students from his wheelchair.
Volunteer Action Center Literacy Program
Founded by University of Arkansas students in 2010, the Volunteer Action Center Literacy Program is a student lead volunteer program that tutors children in literacy in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
The program encourages reading and developing an enjoyment of reading among school-aged children who receive free and reduced lunches. In addition, the program addresses the need of providing low-income children with quality, awarding-winning books to develop their own personal libraries. Through research, the program’s student volunteers discovered children that who have quality books of their own have higher reading scores.
The Volunteer Action Center Literacy Program engages 170 students each week who tutor first through fifth graders in one-on-one reading. Volunteers give a minimum of 20 hours a semester with training and tutoring, and many volunteer multiple semesters.
Student leaders of the literacy program have written and received grants to provide books to create personal libraries for the children and to provide quality books at each reading site. They have also secured funding for games that develop literacy skills.
The Volunteer Action Center Literacy Program demonstrates that one college student can make an impact in a child’s life by volunteering one hour a week. As a group of volunteers, they show the Arkansas community that students care and are invested while they are at the University of Arkansas.
Resources for Independence Central Valley
Resources for Independence Central Valley (RICV) develops opportunities for individuals with disabilities and advocates that other community members and leaders include this group as an active and critical part of growth and development.
Through the organization’s pioneer project, Community Leadership Academy (CLA), RICV trains individuals with disabilities to participate actively on nonprofit boards, community advisory boards, committees and councils. A wide range of persons participates in the CLA program with a wide range of disabilities including visual, ambulatory, physical, hearing etc.
Implemented in 2010, RICV has held six CLA cohorts in different locations in California and over 60 persons with disabilities have graduated. Many have become members of boards and committees. Furthermore, RICV is now training other centers around the country to start their own CLA programs, prompting RICV to launch a CLA “Train the Trainers” nationwide in 2012.
