LINCOLN, Neb.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Kayla Blackwell, 17, of Bellevue and Justine Bauer, 13, of Elm Creek today were named Nebraska's top two youth volunteers for 2011 by The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, a nationwide program honoring young people for outstanding acts of volunteerism. The awards program, now in its 16th year, is conducted by Prudential Financial in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP).
Kayla was nominated by University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension of Douglas and Sarpy Counties in Omaha, and Justine was nominated by Elm Creek School in Elm Creek. As State Honorees, each will receive $1,000, an engraved silver medallion, and an all-expense-paid trip in early May to Washington, D.C., where they will join the top two honorees from each of the other states and the District of Columbia for several days of national recognition events. Ten of them will be named America’s top youth volunteers for 2011 at that time.
Kayla, a junior at Bellevue East High School and a member of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension of Douglas and Sarpy Counties, helped organize a dress-making venture that resulted in new dresses for 1,100 little girls in Honduras and Haiti. While searching for a community service project that would be “out of the box and innovative,” Kayla became fascinated by the idea of making dresses after a fellow Girl Scout returned from a church mission trip to Honduras and reported that many girls there weren’t able to come into town because they didn’t have any clothes! “On average, most girls only went to school until the third grade before they outgrew their hand-me-downs,” said Kayla.
Kayla, her friend, and another Girl Scout decided to produce 500 new dresses for the poor girls in Honduras. They came up with a financial plan, showing how they planned to raise the money to buy fabric, advertise their project to recruit people to sew, and ship the dresses. Kayla designed dress patterns and instructions on how to sew reversible dresses, and then asked local church members, school classmates, 4-Hers, neighbors and friends to help. The response was overwhelming! More than 100 volunteers assisted with the sewing, including strangers from as far away as Massachusetts and California. After several months, 1,100 dresses had been completed. Three hundred were sent to Haiti following the 2010 earthquake there. Kayla and her friends personally delivered the rest to Honduras last summer. “It was the most fun and heartwarming thing I have ever done,” said Kayla. She hopes to return to the Central American country to distribute more dresses soon.
Justine, an eighth-grader at Elm Creek School, planned and implemented a series of regular visits to a local nursing home to increase the social interaction of residents there, and encouraged others at her school and in her community to help alleviate the loneliness of nursing home residents. Justine’s great-grandmother lives at the nursing home and each time Justine visited her, she was struck by how few visitors there were at the facility. “This concerned me,” she said, so she spoke with the facility’s director and the nurses and discovered that more than a third of the residents were never visited by friends or family members. “This made me really sad, but it made me want to get involved and make a change,” Justine said.
Justine first did some research and learned that millions of elderly people suffer from depression, and the number of nursing home residents is expected to grow dramatically in the years ahead, that frequent social contact can slow mental and physical decline. With the help of the nursing home staff, she selected four residents to visit on a regular basis and set up a schedule. Over the next several months, she met numerous times with each one individually to chat about family, sports, school, and other topics of mutual interest. She also brought handmade gifts such as greeting cards, snowflake decorations, and chocolate-covered pretzels. In an attempt to get others involved, Justine persuaded her class at school to make treats for elderly friends, and began making presentations to school and 4-H groups about the loneliness of nursing home residents. She also placed an article in her school newsletter, community newspaper and on the school website to encourage people to visit their elderly friends and relatives.
In addition, the program judges recognized two other Nebraska students as Distinguished Finalists for their impressive community service activities. Each will receive an engraved bronze medallion:
Brianna Brass, 17, of Lincoln, a senior at Lincoln East High School, recruited volunteers to help meet her goal of making and donating 56 handmade blankets to a home for abused and neglected children. Brianna, who started her project in 2009, also organized drives to donate more than 200 stuffed animals and nearly 1,400 books for the children at CEDARS Home for Children.
Sara Culey, 18, of Kearney, a senior at Kearney High School, initiated a community-wide memorial event and a physical memorial at the community tennis courts to honor her best friend, an avid tennis player, who died in a car accident. Sara, who helped raised $2,000 to support the project, managed the event logistics, promotion and volunteer recruitment for the memorial candle-lighting event, and the building of a new shade shelter at the courts in her friend’s honor.
“These award recipients have proven that young people across America are critical to the future of our neighborhoods, our nation, and our world,” said John R. Strangfeld, chairman and CEO of Prudential Financial. “Each and every one of these honorees deserve our respect and admiration, and we hope by shining a light on them, they will continue to serve as an example for others.”
“The young people recognized by the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards demonstrate an enormous capacity for giving and reaching out to those in need,” said Gerald N. Tirozzi, executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals. “NASSP is proud to honor these student leaders because they are wonderful examples of the high caliber of young people in our nation’s schools today.”
All public and private middle level and high schools in the country, as well as all Girl Scout councils, county 4-H organizations, American Red Cross chapters, YMCAs and affiliates of HandsOn Network, were eligible to select a student or member for a local Prudential Spirit of Community Award this past November. More than 5,000 Local Honorees were then reviewed by an independent judging panel, which selected State Honorees and Distinguished Finalists based on criteria such as personal initiative, creativity, effort, impact and personal growth.
While in Washington, D.C., the 102 State Honorees will tour the capital’s landmarks, attend a gala awards ceremony at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and visit their congressional representatives on Capitol Hill. In addition, 10 of them – five middle level and five high school students – will be named National Honorees on May 2 by a prestigious national selection committee. These honorees will receive additional $5,000 awards, gold medallions, crystal trophies, and $5,000 grants from The Prudential Foundation for nonprofit, charitable organizations of their choice.
Serving on the national selection committee will be John Strangfeld of Prudential; Jana Frieler, president of NASSP; Michelle Nunn, president and CEO of the Points of Light Institute & Hands On Network; Marguerite Kondracke, president and CEO of the America’s Promise Alliance; Donald T. Floyd Jr., president and CEO of National 4-H Council; Pamela Farr, the American Red Cross’ national chair of volunteers; Elson Nash, associate director for project management at the Corporation for National and Community Service; Michael Cohen, president and CEO of Achieve, Inc.; and two 2010 Prudential Spirit of Community National Honorees: Shannon McNamara of Basking Ridge, N.J., and Benjamin Sater of Plano, Texas.
In addition to granting its own awards, The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program will be distributing President’s Volunteer Service Awards to more than 2,800 of its Local Honorees this year on behalf of President Barack Obama. The President’s Volunteer Service Award recognizes Americans of all ages who have volunteered significant amounts of their time to serve their communities and their country.
The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards represent the United States’ largest youth recognition program based solely on volunteer service. Since the program began in 1995, more than 95,000 young volunteers nationwide have been honored at the local, state or national level. Many prominent public figures have assisted in saluting these honorees over the years, including Jimmy Carter, Barbara Bush, Magic Johnson, John Glenn, Madeleine Albright, Rudy Giuliani, Whoopi Goldberg, Colin Powell, Peyton Manning, Laura Bush, and Condoleezza Rice. The program also is conducted by Prudential subsidiaries in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Ireland and India.
For information on all of this year’s Prudential Spirit of Community State Honorees and Distinguished Finalists, visit spirit.prudential.com or www.nassp.org/spirit.
In existence since 1916, the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) is the preeminent organization of and national voice for middle level and high school principals, assistant principals, and aspiring school leaders from across the United States and more than 45 countries around the world. NASSP’s mission is to promote excellence in school leadership. The National Honor Society ®, National Junior Honor Society ®, National Elementary Honor Society™, and National Association of Student Councils ® are all NASSP programs. For more information about NASSP, located in Reston, Va., visit www.nassp.org or call 703-860-0200.
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Editors: Graphics depicting the award program’s logo and medallions may be downloaded from spirit.prudential.com.