Abigail Moorhead

When ninth-grader Abigail Moorhead went to Zambia in 2011 she was excited to hang out with children halfway around the world; she had no idea how much of a lasting impact the children would have on her life.

Abigail, who lives in Houston, traveled to Zambia with her mom on a Family Legacy Mission trip to learn about and help some of the 1 million orphans in the country. During her trip she wrote a daily blog to keep her friends informed of her adventures. From seeing how the orphans lived and interacting with them Abigail was inspired to do more.

“The children that I am trying to help are not just a picture or statistic to me,” says Abigail, 15. “They are actual girls and boys that I have met, gotten to know, kicked a soccer ball with and shared deep discussions about their personal lives. Even after I left Zambia, I couldn’t stop thinking about them.”

When Abigail came back to the United States she learned how her blog and her experiences touched her friends, especially her theater director at Wildfish Theatre, Krysti Wilson. Knowing that Abigail wanted to do more to help the children of Zambia, Wilson suggested they stage a benefit performance. Abigail, who had been acting since she was young, loved the idea.

During the first year Abigail and her fellow actors from Wildfish Theatre held three Voices for Zambia concerts with a total of 300 people in attendance. At each concert Abigail told her story of the children she met and how Voices for Zambia got started. Several musical acts were performed and other kids told their experiences of traveling to Zambia and meeting the children.

Abigail stays in touch with the children she’s met through writing, and she returns to Zambia every year to participate in the summer program.

“Seeing the kids again is amazing. They run up and attack me, yelling ‘Auntie Abigail!’ she says. “I get to see how they’ve grown physically and mentally. Some of them, who could not speak English the first time I met them, are speaking and writing to me in English one year later. It is very exciting and rewarding.”

Since Voices for Zambia’s inaugural concert three years ago, the group has put together 10 concerts and reached an audience of more than 1,000 people. This year Abigail has another set of concerts planned and is including a larger location for the event. Some members of the audience were so inspired by Abigail’s work they decided to create their own shows in other cities to raise money for Zambian orphans and have invited Abigail to perform in them.

Voices for Zambia has raised more than $100,000 in donations and 75 orphaned children have been sponsored by the people who have attended the concerts. The money was used to help build a home and provide support for some of the orphans and the sponsorships have allowed children living on the streets to attend private school.

“I think that something like Voices for Zambia shows that even someone my age can do something that really makes a difference in someone else’s life,” Abigail says. “I feel that I have been able to be a voice for these kids that otherwise don’t have a voice.”

Dave Lindsey

Self-made businessman Dave Lindsey has motivated thousands of his workers and their families to take part in international community service projects – and thousands more from other companies to serve their own communities.

Lindsey, of Indianapolis, says people were born to serve, and that businesses – as groups of people – should do the same. In 1998, Lindsey founded a small home services company, DEFENDER Direct, which he built into a thriving national corporation with more than 2,000 employees. Over the years, Lindsey has fostered a spirit of volunteer service, by offering a variety of employee incentives and creating the nonprofit Companies With a Mission.

Since 2007, DEFENDER employees have traveled to Mexico and other countries to help build houses in poor communities through Homes of Hope, a program of Youth With a Mission. More than 5,000 employees have worked on Homes of Hope builds, and this year DEFENDER celebrated completion of its 200th house. Lindsey, his wife, Jess, and their children have personally participated in 11 home builds.

In 2011, Lindsey launched the Super Service Challenge, a program that allowed DEFENDER employees to form teams and compete through volunteer work for a share of $1 million in prize money, awarded to charities chosen by the winning teams. The competition proved so popular that Companies With a Mission eventually opened it to companies nationwide. The three-month Super Service Challenge last year attracted the support of New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, whose foundation partnered with Companies With a Mission.

In three years, more than 15,000 employees from more than 1,000 companies have performed 100,000 hours of volunteer service for 1,200 charities through the competition, and $3.1 million has been awarded to the charities of winning teams. Winners are chosen by an independent panel and public voting.

Lindsey believes that DEFENDER benefits from its own volunteer service program. His company motto is, “Businesses don’t grow, people do!” and he believes the money and time invested in service comes back to the company tenfold through the growth and development of its employees. He sees the Super Service Challenge as particularly valuable to the company culture.

“Empowering employees to choose where they wanted to serve, we encountered a shift from a giving company to a company of givers,” says Lindsey.

DEFENDER employees are offered four paid “giving days” per year for volunteer work in addition to their standard paid time off, and Lindsey estimates that 90 percent of his employees have taken the opportunity to volunteer.

Lindsey says that of all the charitable missions in which he has participated – including creating a special program at the Indianapolis Boys Club Girls Club, volunteering with his family at an orphanage in Uganda and traveling with his family to Taiwan as part of a program to educate diabetic children – his favorite has been working on home builds.

“Everyone needs to do it,” he says. “The experience will change your heart, your kids’ hearts and your family’s vision of the world.”

Grace O’Brien

While many 16-year-olds are focused on getting a driver’s license and surviving high school, Grace O’Brien is focused on serving others – helping deaf children in developing countries hear.

In the summer of 2012, when she volunteered at a theater program for deaf children, Grace saw the difference hearing aids could make.

“I watched as the children gained self-confidence in themselves as they developed listening and speaking skills needed to assimilate with their peers, and be successful in school and life,” Grace recalls.

She did some research and found that two-thirds of the world’s 278 million people with hearing loss live in developing countries. These children and their families cannot afford hearing aids, which can cost $1,000 to $4,000, let alone the batteries that must be changed weekly.

“In developing countries the deaf are not a priority in health – they’re outcasts,” Grace says.

So Grace founded Ears for Years Inc., a nonprofit that supplies solar-powered hearing aids to deaf children in the developing world. With the help of her older sister, Kate, her family and her community, Grace has grown the Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif., nonprofit into a success.

To eliminate the cost of replacing batteries, Ears for Years purchases solar-powered hearing aid kits, developed by SolarEar in Brazil. The kits, which include hearing aids and batteries, cost $100, a fraction of the cost of hearing aids in the United States. And the batteries, recharged by the sun, last two to three years.

So far Grace and Ears for Years has fitted more than 50 hearing aids on children around the world with another 100 planned within the next year. Grace also tries to meet the children who receive hearing aids. She has already been to Mexico and Nicaragua with hopes of traveling to Haiti next.

In order to raise money for the hearing aid kits Grace started an annual clothing drive at her school where all the clothing gets sold to consignment shops. In addition, the Ears for Years club she founded at her high school holds bake sales and other programs to raise money and teach others about what deaf children in impoverished countries face. Grace has also begun working with local stores that donate a percentage of their proceeds to Ears for Years.

Grace hopes to see Ears for Years clubs form at other schools. She says, “Success for me would be to change people’s lives one hearing aid at a time.”

Attorney Eugene Fitz-Ritson

Attorney Eugene Fitz-Ritson of Miramar, Florida volunteers as a leadership coach for Family and Friends Connection, a nonprofit organization made up of volunteers who provide resources to support the health and educational aspirations of the Miramar community.

Ritson began offering his services to the organization when he noticed community members were struggling to maintain viable businesses because they lacked the necessary management skills. Thus, Ritson created curriculum, developed a management-training program, and dedicated his time and resources to ensure local entrepreneurs received much needed training to grow a successful business. Ritson’s training program became so successful that even people from outside the community frequented the free workshops each week.

Ritson has trained well over 100 community members and others from nearby areas. People continue to have access to the free training material that he makes available through Family and Friends Connection. Ritson’s volunteer project began as a small organizational in-house training project, but it has evolved into a well-known source of free training for everyone.

Allie Thiesse

Allie Thiesse of Yankton, South Dakota is an advocate for issues affecting young people and animals.

Thiesse, a junior at Yankton High School, has actively participated and coordinated service opportunities with the Humane Society and organizations benefiting youth since the fifth grade.

Thiesse’s passion for helping youth and animals has motivated her to engage in fundraising initiatives and letter writing campaigns to urge legislators to change laws, which do not prevent the cruel treatment of animals. She took her advocating a step further to educate her peers by inviting Humane Society representatives to speak to her class about the ramifications of animal cruelty.

In regards to her passion for youth, Theisse founded the Walter’s Warriors group to offer support to a fellow classmate who is undergoing his second battle with cancer. Through the initiative, Theisse implemented a t-shirt campaign and raised approximately $7,500 to assist the family with medical costs.

Additionally, she teamed up with her peers, community members, and ART FEEDS to deliver over 40 pounds of art supplies to youth in Oklahoma affected by the deadly tornadoes that devastated the region during the spring of 2013.

Theisse has been serving others for a little over six years now. She plans to continue to fuel her passion and develop her talents for serving others by attending leadership seminars and reaching out to youth in hopes of demonstrating the importance of community involvement.