Stephanie Decker

Meet Daily Point of Light Award honoree Stephanie Decker. Read her story and nominate someone you know as a Point of Light.

Stephanie Decker

Seeking refuge in her basement – a tornado headed toward her Henryville, Indiana, home – 37-year-old Stephanie Decker found herself in a life-changing moment.

With the foundation of her brick house disintegrating around her, she shielded her two kids from the debris.

“There was a beam that was falling, and I had to make a decision,” Decker recalls. “My fear was, if I let go, they would go up in the tornado. So I let the beam fall. I knew instantly that my legs were severed.”

Decker’s children were unharmed in the 2012 disaster. But she had cracked ribs, a punctured lung, and her legs had to be amputated.

Drawing on the values she learned through her lifelong involvement with sports, her will to overcome and a new realization that she could make a difference – she started The Stephanie Decker Foundation. The organization supports children with prosthetics participating in sports and helps people gain access to prosthetic technology.

It also provides scholarships to send children to NubAbility Athletics camp in Illinois. The camp, for children missing limbs, provides intense athletic training in more than 10 adaptive sports, including track, soccer, football, gymnastics, wrestling, baseball and basketball.

“We can teach these kids that they can do anything in the world,” Decker says. “I’m a firm believer – the only limitations that you have in life are the ones you set on yourself.”

Growing up with a basketball in her hand, Decker has always found fulfillment and confidence through sports. She sees what competitive sports does for her own children and has dedicated her efforts to help young people living without limbs to experience sports.

Decker tells of one young man her foundation has helped, a quad amputee, who learned how to pitch a baseball with the aid of a special glove, bringing him an untold sense of accomplishment.

“Sports teaches you what you’re made of,” Decker says. “It teaches you about perseverance.”

Decker has leveraged national attention she’s received to advocate for amputees. Her foundation supports two major areas: bringing competitive sports to kids with prosthetics and opening access to leading-edge prosthetics for all who need them.

In 2013, Decker appeared before the Kentucky Senate to advocate for a bill requiring insurance companies to cover new and refurbished prosthetics.

Nearly 2 million Americans are amputees fitted with prosthetics. However, insurance companies are only required to pay for restored prosthetics and refitting in 20 states, according to a study by Johns Hopkins University and the Amputee Coalition.

Decker says when she awoke in an intensive care unit after being rescued from the debris in the aftermath of the tornado, she immediately understood her life would never be the same.

She asked her husband to begin researching her options to become ambulatory. At the same time, she realized that, borne out of a disaster, she was going to help others.

“As much as losing my legs is a tragedy, it could have been a lot worse,” she says. “I was being given a second chance. It was time to make a difference and create a ripple effect that could help other people.”

Decker was recognized by L’Oréal Paris and Points of Light as a 2014 Woman of Worth for her extraordinary volunteer work. Nominate an inspiring woman who is creating change in her community to be one of this year’s Women of Worth at www.womenofworth.com.

Audra DiPadova-Wilford

Meet today’s Daily Point of Light Award honoree Audra DiPadova-Wilford. Read her story and nominate someone you know as a Point of Light.

Audra DiPadova-Wilford and her son, Max

Watching her 8-year-old son, Max, battle brain cancer was all the motivation Audra DiPadova-Wilford needed to bring accessible, whole-body wellness to kids – including children of military families – in their own battles with cancer and other life-threatening conditions.

Through her volunteer-driven nonprofit MaxLove Project, DiPadova-Wilford supports cancer research, provides nutrition coaching and runs a fun camp for kids fighting illness, among other programs. 

She also helps distribute Twilight Turtles, plush nightlights that soothe kids staying overnight in hospitals. In partnership with toy manufacturer Cloud b, the California-based organization has distributed $150,000 worth of Twilight Turtles to children with cancer.

Now, doctors actually prescribe the lights, which makes them eligible to be covered by insurance. And DiPadova-Wilford is working with partners on extending the line to include other therapeutic toys.

An accomplished professional chef, DiPadova-Wilford has also worked with doctors and dieticians to build awareness of the connections that diet has to overall wellness.

She found out that kids who do survive life-threatening illnesses are more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes or become obese because of diets in the hospital.

Through her research, she learned about cancer-fighting foods and that some foods are linked to cancer growth. She has used what she learned to work with families and dieticians on meal plans, developing a Fierce Foods Academy workshop and other resources including the Broth Bank, a service that provides families with organic broths on a regular basis.

DiPadova-Wilford, her son (who claims the title of chief inspiration officer), supporters and volunteers have even bonded together over some creative work: Max started a “rainbow loom” craze when he and classmates sought to break the world record for the longest loom.

The looms were featured on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and “Ellen.” DiPadova-Wilford has also shaved her head multiple times to help fundraise for partner organizations. She has brought support, comfort and well-being to a multitude of children struggling with illness and their families.

DiPadova-Wilford’s passion and creativity stem from wanting to give her son the best chance to thrive. But it is furthered by working with other families going through similar struggles.

“I feel empowered and connected,” DiPadova-Wilford says. “And those are things we do not often feel in the childhood cancer world. … Together we can make the world a better place. Together we give hope.”

In 2014, DiPadova-Wilford was recognized by L’Oréal Paris and Points of Light as a Woman of Worth for her extraordinary volunteer work. Nominate an inspiring woman creating change in her community to be one of this year’s Women of Worth at www.womenofworth.com.

Jenny Williamson

Meet Daily Point of Light Award honoree Jenny Williamson. Read her story and nominate someone you know as a Point of Light.

Jenny Williamson (Photo by Nilaya Sabnis)

Jenny Williamson first learned the phrase “human trafficking” while listening to a sermon at church. 

Her pastor was explaining to the congregation that they lived in a world where children are sold for sex. The thought both repulsed and moved her. She went home and started researching the issue online, learning that her hometown of Sacramento, California, was a major hub for sex trafficking.

“When I found out it was happening in my own backyard, I went from being broken-hearted to incredibly angry,” Williamson recalls.

Williamson discovered there were few services to rehabilitate children rescued from the sex trade. So she set out to help those children by learning about how best to serve them.

She spent time exploring the issue, meeting with local law enforcement officials, child service agency staff, doctors and specialized therapists to learn every facet associated with helping children recover from sexual abuse.

In 2005, she used what she learned to create Courage Worldwide, a nonprofit volunteer organization with a mission to help people find their unique purpose. In 2011, the nonprofit opened Courage House, a home for girls rescued from sex trafficking. There are two locations – one in Northern California and one in Tanzania, Africa.

“They are told over and over and over again – no one cares, you have no value and this is all that you are good for,” Williamson says of the girls, ages 12 to 17. “And that is what we’re trying to do at Courage House, is show them that worth.”

Focused trauma therapy, an on-site school, dance/music/arts studio, equestrian and riding program, and a variety of classes in social and life skills are offered to each girl aged so she is equipped, encouraged and empowered to begin the journey of healing.

Williamson, who adopted two of the children she has helped through her relief work, says it requires 18 to 24 months of trauma therapy for some of the girls to feel safe enough to imagine their futures.

Because there are limited resources to rescue, rehabilitate and house abused young people coming out of such a horrific childhood, Williamson saw a need to develop training for others in the community, including volunteers and local law enforcement personnel.

Meanwhile, Williamson and her team have raised more than $5 million since 2010 to expand the campuses and programming for Courage Worldwide.

Their vision is to engage 1 million people to build 1,000 homes in 100 countries during the next 10 years so that hundreds of thousands of young people can be rescued and restored.

Williamson says that when the children begin to think about their futures, that’s when she knows they’re making real progress.

“They’re kids that have never had a childhood,” Williamson says. “And so they learn to laugh again, and they learn to cry and they learn to talk about things they don’t ever want to remember, because that is what healing looks like.”

Williamson was recognized by L’Oréal Paris and Points of Light as a 2014 Woman of Worth for her extraordinary volunteer work. Nominate an inspiring woman who is creating change in her community to be one of this year’s Women of Worth at www.womenofworth.com.

Cara McCollum

This week – in coordination with the National Education Association’s annual Read Across America Day, March 2 – Points of Light and First Book are honoring volunteers who are teaching children to read. Meet Cara McCollum, today’s Daily Point of Light Award winner, and nominate someone you know as a Point of Light.

Cara McCollum reads to children at a library, one of many library visits across New Jersey.

When Cara McCollum was 10, she started volunteering for Toys for Toys – the program known for collecting Christmas gifts for children who might otherwise go without.

“Over the years I got to be known as the ‘book lady,’” she recalls. “We got all these book donations and I took to the task of organizing them like a serious librarian.”

She’d set up her book table every year and help parents pick out the perfect books for their children’s presents. “I was very disheartened when parents would walk past my table and go straight to the toys,” she says. “So I started sneaking books into their bags and thought, `There has to be a better way to get books to kids.’”

In 2008, while in high school, McCollum founded the Birthday Book Project – a nonprofit that sends new, gift-wrapped books to children in need for their birthdays. The organization started by giving away 300 books and has grown to give away about 8,000 annually.

“I decided to take that core group of kids … who were part of the Toys for Tots program and give them books for their birthdays,” McCollum says. “If these kids weren’t getting much at Christmas then they were probably not getting much for their birthdays, either.”

McCollum dreamed of getting books directly into the hands of kids in kindergarten through fifth grade on their birthdays, promoting the idea that reading is a gift. She says her small-town upbringing in Forrest, Arkansas, played a part.

“The Arkansas delta is a very impoverished and educationally apathetic place and that was the community I grew up in,” says McCollum, a student at Princeton and a former Miss New Jersey. “Books for me were a way to get away. I would read these books and they would transport me across the globe and see places I hadn’t seen in real life.”

McCollum says she was fortunate to have parents who encouraged her to check out books from the library and read. She credits her love of books for getting her to where she is today: “I go to Princeton. I read about it in a book and it seemed like a magical place.”

In the beginning, McCollum and her mother would spend hours on eBay looking for books to give to children. Now they partner with First Book, a nonprofit that provides access to books to children in need. The Birthday Book Project now gets all its books from First Book.

So far, McCollum has delivered more than 25,000 books to children throughout New Jersey and Arkansas. She was named the New Jersey State Library Champion of the Year in 2013 (the same year she took the crown as Miss New Jersey), which gave her the opportunity to host story times at dozens of libraries.

McCollum says that through the Birthday Book Project she hopes to “broaden kids’ imagination and have them learn about different places they’ll want to visit someday.”

Jeannette Winkelman

This week – in coordination with the National Education Association’s annual Read Across America Day, March 2 – Points of Light and First Book are honoring volunteers who are teaching children to read. Meet Jeannette Winkelman, today’s Daily Point of Light Award winner, and nominate someone you know as a Point of Light.

Jeannette Winkelman, left, of Richardson, Texas, interacts with local children through an educational church program.

Retirement didn’t sit well with Jeannette Winkelman, who taught French and English as a Second Language, or ESL, for 20 years.

“All of a sudden I had nothing to do,” says Winkelman, of Richardson, Texas. “I wasn’t ready to retire.”

Volunteering had always been a big part of her life and most of her volunteer activities had been through her church, First United Methodist Church Richardson. She felt that would be a good starting place to seek out her next role.

“Our church has a Church and Society committee that I went to and we began kicking around the idea of teaching ESL classes,” Winkelman recalls.

Members of the church passed out flyers at local restaurants and centers and soon the small church meeting room was full of students wanting to learn English. The class got so big that Winkelman and her fellow volunteers had to find a bigger space to hold their lessons.

The ESL classes moved to a nearby apartment complex in the Richardson School District, where Winkelman had taught. Moving to the apartment complex served as a catalyst for Winkelman’s church to start a new program that went beyond ESL classes and into developing and sustaining children’s reading skills.

Vacation Church School was established, taking place in June after the official school year ended. Winkelman helps to enlist mothers to organize recreational activities, refreshments and crafts – activities these women were not comfortable taking part in during the school year because of a language barrier.

“These women used to withdraw because they were uncomfortable with English,” Winkelman says. “With our Vacation Church School, they feel more comfortable and take a bigger role in their children’s education.”

Vacation Church School also spawned another new program for the church, called Read With Me. This program enlists volunteers to come and read with children during the summer to help maintain their reading skills. Volunteers work with 25 kids a day and even provides children with books they can keep.

Winkelman has helped more than 50 adults improve their English. Because she has been so faithful in teaching ESL classes and helping build programs, her church offers free English classes every year.

“I enjoy the work,” Winkelman says. “I thought that everyone in the apartment complex knew each other, but that wasn’t so. We built a community and grew into a group that cared about each other.”

Nina Nelan

This week – in coordination with the National Education Association’s annual Read Across America Day, March 2 – Points of Light and First Book are honoring volunteers who are teaching children to read. Meet Nina Nelan, today’s Daily Point of Light Award winner, and nominate someone you know as a Point of Light.

Nina Nelan, left, with her reading buddy, Anastasia Medina

Every week Nina Nelan hops on a school bus with her coworkers for a power lunch unlike any other.

Through the Power Lunch program – a collaboration of the Denver Public Schools Foundation, Mile High United Way and Denver Public Schools – area workers are matched with second- or third-grade “reading buddies.” Coworkers visit weekly as a group – sometimes aboard an actual school bus – to meet with their buddies for 45-minute reading sessions.

“We are in a high-pressure work environment and there are often times when it’s Friday morning and people feel like they’re too busy,” says Nelan, a tax director at PwC, a global network of firms that provide assurance, tax and advisory services. “But as soon as you get on the school bus, it’s pretty much immediate that you leave the stress behind.”

Roughly two years ago, Nelan was looking for a way to incorporate her love of reading and her employer’s commitment to employee volunteerism and youth education. She found the Power Lunch program. Nelan conducted an informal office poll to gauge interest; the idea was a hit.

In the Denver area, many first and third graders need to improve their reading skills in order to score a minimum level of “proficient” on standardized state tests. Many of these students are also in need of positive and reliable adult role models.

Nelan and her PwC colleagues participate in the Power Lunch program at Columbian Elementary, a Denver public school serving about 300 students from preschool to fifth grade. At Columbian, 91 percent of students qualify for free and reduced lunch, 94 percent are minorities and just 58.5 percent scored proficient in reading in the 2013-2014 school year.

“The third grade has been identified as the critical year where you go from `learning to read’ to `reading to learn,’” Nelan says. “So if we can get these students there at the end of third grade, they are set up for success as they continue through school.”

PwC has been a partner at Columbian Elementary since 2012, providing the school with financial, in-kind and volunteer resources. And since then, Nelan has engaged more than 100 volunteers in early literacy at Columbian.

“The first year it took six weeks to get 42 people lined up,” Nelan says. “This year we had a wait list of 32 people within five days.” Nelan leverages the company’s volunteer policy to encourage staff to take time once a week. “We are eligible for unlimited volunteer hours for activities and organizations that are committed to youth activities and development.” Nelan also works to get the company’s partners to participate.

Nelan says the weekly school bus ride to Columbian is an opportunity for the PwC staff to build community: “We share silly stories about our buddies, what they say and do. It improves morale and we see the true impact of corporate social responsibility through our people and our resources and expertise.”

An accountant, Nelan loves to see the numbers. The volunteers saw from last year’s data that the kids who were reading below grade level moved up on average 1 1/2 grade levels.

“They learned in one year what would take others a year and a half,” Nelan says. “It always feels good to know you’re doing something.“

Terrance Brown

This week – in coordination with the National Education Association’s annual Read Across America Day, March 2 – Points of Light and First Book are honoring volunteers who are teaching children to read. Meet Terrance Brown, today’s Daily Point of Light Award winner, and nominate someone you know as a Point of Light.

Terrance Brown shows elementary school kids a trick with his dog, Ziggy, during which Ziggy appears to be reading.

As a Vietnam War combat veteran who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, Terrance Brown knows firsthand the healing power of dogs.

“When I retired from the Army Reserves my wife gave me a dog,” says Brown, who writes a regular feature about local soldiers for the Albany Times Union. “When the dog died after 14 years, [my wife] noticed that during the entire time I had that dog I had no PTSD relapses. That dog was clearly very therapeutic.”

Brown also realized that dogs had another special talent: They could help a child read.

“My granddaughter has Asperger’s syndrome and was very late in developing her reading skills,” Brown says. “She refused to read to her parents, so my wife and I encouraged her to read to the dog. Slowly but surely over time her reading skills improved.”

These two personal experiences have shaped the volunteer work Brown does today, helping kids enhance their reading skills. He got his dogs – Shetland sheepdogs named Ziggy and Jenna – trained as therapy dogs. Dogs that receive such training provide comfort to people in need, such as someone who is recovering from an injury, or someone who is grieving the loss of a loved one.

Brown and his dogs joined a therapy group chapter and ended up at a seminar in Schenectady, New York. The local school district had invited volunteer groups to show what they do for the community.

Terrance Brown and his dogs

“There we were, walking around when a bunch of youngsters came up to us, excited about the dogs,” Brown recalls. “At that session, I pointed out the importance of reading. I did a demo with Ziggy, and the kids and adults were astonished at what Ziggy could do.”

Astonished, because it looked like Ziggy could read.

Brown has trained his dogs to recognize words on paper using sleight finger motions that only his dogs can see. If he holds up a piece of paper that says “sit,” the dogs sit.

“I pointed out the importance of listening and staying focused, and showed how Ziggy was focusing on me,” says Brown.

The principal of FDR Elementary School saw the kids’ reactions and was intrigued. She followed Brown around that day and soon asked him to participate in a weekly reading program at the school with his dogs. Three years later, Brown, Ziggy and Jenna visit the school every week for an hour or so.

Brown engages 120 at-risk children from low-income households attending first through sixth grades, seeing kids in small groups. The students read books or text they’ve written to Brown and his dogs. Students who typically avoid reading clamor for their turn to read to the dogs, and they show improvement in reading over the course of a school year. 

“The dogs are patient, giving the youngsters confidence to read without being criticized,” Brown says. “There are several kids who witnessed violence during home invasions and had issues focusing. They lacked confidence and spending time reading to the dogs helps them to relax and focus.”

Tiffany James

This week – in coordination with the National Education Association’s annual Read Across America Day, March 2 – Points of Light and First Book are honoring volunteers who are teaching children to read. Meet Tiffany James, today’s Daily Point of Light Award winner, and nominate someone you know as a Point of Light.

Tiffany James, right, tutors third grader Crystal.

Tiffany James thinks about her daughter when explaining why she is so passionate about teaching kids to read: “My daughter’s favorite book when she was little is all taped up and half the pages are gone. It was so loved, she sort of made it her friend. I just want more kids to be able to love reading as much as my daughter did.”

James, who works for the city of Baltimore’s Parking Authority, began volunteering as a tutor two years ago, when the mayor made it possible for city employees to tutor third graders in reading two hours a week without having to use personal time. The city’s program, Third Grade Reads, works with the nonprofit Reading Partners to match volunteers with third graders.

James persuaded her boss to volunteer with Reading Partners; he in turn invited the organization to give a presentation for employees. Nine more signed up to tutor kids.

In Baltimore, the majority of third graders aren’t proficient in reading. Without solid reading skills, it will become increasingly harder for those students to keep up in school and reach their full potential.

“Literacy is important to help broaden your options in life,” James says. “I want to provide that opportunity to as many kids as possible here in Baltimore.”

James helped organize a book drive that collected 2,413 books for the children being tutored, who get to take a book home after each session. The book drive, which was implemented in city garages, was so well received that some of the garage operators placed donation boxes in garages they privately managed.

In addition to the hands-on, one-on-one volunteer time James spends tutoring, she is also busy building support for Reading Partners. Her efforts have led to interest from two additional principals and a city official.

“If you make it easy for someone to do something good,” James says, “they usually rise to the occasion.”

John Ketner

Meet Daily Point of Light Award honoree John Ketner. Read his story and nominate someone you know as a Point of Light.

State Street employee John Ketner uses his process management skills to help Boston-area nonprofits.

From his experience supporting the arts community – as co-founder of an arts magazine and a board member of an arts networking organization – John Ketner understands the gap between a nonprofit’s vision and what it has the capacity to do.

That space is where Ketner does his best work.

A business process expert who supports a global financial markets trading desk, Ketner helps Boston-area nonprofits shore up their internal systems and infrastructure so they can expand their reach.

By using his skills as a pro bono volunteer, along with other employees at State Street Corporation, Ketner has helped many nonprofits, addressing various community needs, including housing and homelessness prevention; inner-city development programs; and services for immigrants and youth.

Ketner’s pro bono projects have ranged from accounts receivable improvements and website redesign to database deployments and marketing strategy assessments – the components that make up the central nervous system for nonprofits. Before the lungs can draw breath, the brain has to tell them to breathe.

Ketner’s many contributions might not have happened were it not for an organization that helped State Street formalize its employee volunteer program. Common Impact has worked with State Street for 12 years, acting as a sort of matchmaker to pair companies that want to help their communities with nonprofits in need.

Danielle Holly, Common Impact CEO says, “We help employers unlock their most strategic asset: the pro bono skills of their employees. We see so many employees eager to play a role in strengthening their local communities. The challenges are right outside their door. And we act as a bridge, connecting them to those challenges they’re best positioned to address.”

Holly met Ketner at an information session for prospective volunteers and saw his potential. “He showed up and immediately got it,” she recalls. “John saw these pro bono opportunities as more than just volunteer projects. He saw them as unique opportunities to grow as a leader.”

An active participant in volunteering through his employer since 2006, Ketner has served as a champion for Common Impact at State Street, encouraging his colleagues, some from as far away as China and France, to participate with him. He has invested more than 400 volunteer hours on Common Impact projects alone.

“Some of these volunteer projects bring together State Street employees who might not get to work together on a daily basis,” he explains. “We learn from each other through these projects and develop new skills. We find a way to make it work, even if we’re not in the same room together. It helps the organization grow stronger, it’s a win for the nonprofits we help and it’s a win for the community.”

Common Impact’s Holly describes Ketner as a studious and humble volunteer, leading by example. From Ketner’s point of view, channeling his talents into helping others comes naturally.

“I’ve lived my entire life in the nonprofit world,” he says, describing his upbringing in a parsonage that fostered his deep appreciation for a key principle of selflessness: love thy neighbor. “It’s not enough to be successful. I feel it’s equally important to share and help others. It’s how you become a whole person.”