2011 National Honorees

• High School National Honorees
• Middle School Level National Honorees

Justin Churchman
Justin, a senior at Coronado High School, has raised more than $48,000 and recruited more than 75 volunteers to build 18 houses in Juarez, Mexico, despite the rampant drug wars that have frightened away many other American volunteers. When he was 12, Justin's school organized the building of a home in Juarez through an organization called Casas por Cristo. "From El Paso, you look into Juarez and see miles of shacks made of tires, wood pallets and cardboard, housing thousands of poor," said Justin. "When my school built for Casas, it changed my life." For several years, Justin's school continued to take volunteers over the border to build homes, but like many volunteer groups, stopped when the violence escalated. Justin, though, couldn't stop. "I had already learned what it meant to provide shelter to someone who had none, and it became critical to me to continue," he said. So, in 2006 he put together his own team of volunteers to build a three-room house.

The biggest obstacle, according to Justin, was convincing adults that a teen could take on such a project. He spent five months planning and raising money. To raise funds, he made speeches and wrote letters, obtaining support from three companies and many individuals. He made lists of materials and supplies the team would need, got international permits for travel, purchased insurance, and handled the paperwork for the 30 volunteers he had recruited. That first year, his team built a house in three days. After that trip, Justin begged Casas to give him more responsibility. They made him a "junior intern," and often called upon him to supervise roof building at its sites in Juarez. Moreover, he has continued to raise money for his own building projects; last year the teams he built with finished six houses, achieving his goal of completing 18 houses by his 18th birthday. "I'm motivated by the look in the grateful father's eyes when I hand him his first set of house keys, and by the mother who told me she'd be warm for the first time in nine years, and by the grown daughter who cried when she saw she had a real door - and that was before we told her it even locked," said Justin.

Sarah Cronk
Sarah, a senior at Pleasant Valley High School, co-founded a cheerleading squad at her high school that includes students with disabilities, and then formed a nonprofit corporation that encourages teens across the country to start similar squads at their schools. Three years ago, Sarah and a fellow cheerleader persuaded school administrators to let them form a cheerleading squad that would include disabled students. "My older brother has special needs," explained Sarah. "I have experienced first-hand how much he has benefited whenever his typically developing peers have included him in social activities. I wanted to bring that experience to others. "Within two weeks, 10 girls with disabilities ranging from autism to Down syndrome signed up for the squad, called "The Sparkles."

"The first few weeks were very challenging," said Sarah, "but after a month of twice-weekly practices, our Sparkles emerged miraculously as a cohesive, spirited, and joyful cheerleading squad." They have since cheered through three football and three basketball seasons and three Special Olympics, and have been greeted enthusiastically by the student body and the community. Sarah, who has been both a coach and the squad's captain, sought grants and donations to cover the cost of uniforms and travel, so there'd be no cost to the participants' families. Sarah also created the Sparkle Effect, Inc., to educate students throughout the U.S. about the value of including young people with disabilities in high school sports programming, and to help them launch their own inclusive cheerleading squads. This has involved creating a website at www.thesparkleeffect.org, speaking to audiences across the country, providing on-site training, and raising more than $40,000 to provide new uniforms cost-free. The result so far: 26 cheerleading squads in 19 states similar to The Sparkles.

Jeffrey Hanson
Jeffrey, a junior at Horizon Academy in Roeland Park, has generated more than $225,000 for various local and national charities over the past five years by selling and donating original paintings and other artistic creations, despite having a genetic condition that causes severe loss of vision. In the fall of 2005, Jeffrey began going blind from neurofibromatosis and an optic nerve tumor. While undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment, he started painting watercolor notecards to raise money for neurofibromatosis research, and discovered he had a talent for art. Soon after, he set up an early-morning "coffee shop" in his driveway every Saturday, selling notecards, paintings, and baked goods, and raising more than $13,000 for the Children's Tumor Foundation.

As demand for his notecards grew, a local printing company offered to print them in large quantities. He now sells them, along with notepads, calendars, greeting cards, and acrylic paintings on canvas, through a website at www.JeffreyOwenHanson.com. In addition, Jeffrey has donated scores of original paintings to be auctioned off at charitable fund-raisers for as much as $5,000 apiece, and has gifted paintings to a South African orphanage and a school in Kansas City. Whole Foods Market recently began selling an eco-friendly reusable grocery bag designed by Jeffrey, with a share of the proceeds going to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which named him a Global Ambassador at a convention last fall. In addition, Jeffrey is frequently invited to share his story at schools, churches, businesses, and community organizations. "Every act of kindness helps create kinder communities, more compassionate nations and a better world for all… even one painting at a time," he says.

Aimee Matheson
Aimee, a senior at Clearfield High School, coordinated the building of a day-care and community center in Guatemala so that impoverished single mothers would have a safe and nurturing place for their children to stay while they are at work. During a trip to Guatemala with her father, "I saw that countless children were being left in hazardous situations by desperate single mothers," said Aimee. She met one mother who had locked her two children in their crude home to keep them safe, and returned home after work to find they had burned to death. "We left with the determination to provide an alternative to such avoidable tragedies," Aimee said.

Aimee returned to Guatemala alone over spring break to research the feasibility of building a day care center in Quetzaltenango. Convinced it could be done, she began planning the project back in Utah. She applied to become her school's student body officer for service and then made presentations to students, parents, school administrators, businesses and community groups to secure support for her idea. Fund-raising activities and donation drives followed, along with the recruitment of more than 40 students and 15 parents to conduct a service trip to Guatemala to build the day-care center she had long been planning. In addition to creating a safe environment for approximately 30 children during the workday, the center will provide each child with nutritious meals, basic education and health services, and clothing, according to Aimee. "They have taught me so much!" she said. "If they can be happy with the little they have, then I should never be ungrateful for my many blessings!"

Rujul Zaparde
Rujul, a junior at The Lawrenceville School, co-founded a nonprofit organization that has motivated more than 450 students at 23 schools to raise funds that have been used to dig over 30 water wells in rural India. Rujul traveled to India with his family in 2007 and visited a village called Paras that didn't have fresh water. "The villagers had to walk a few kilometers each way to reach the nearest water source - and that water wasn't even clean," he explained. "I was astounded. I couldn't even begin to imagine what it would be like to live in such a village. "When he returned home, Rujul enlisted the help of a friend to raise $1,000 to build a well for Paras. They held bake sales at school, set up a car wash, solicited donations door-to-door, and eight months later, had enough money. Rujul went back to India and built the well. "I realized then that we could do even more," he said. "We could build more wells, and help more villagers."

Rujul and his friend started a club at their school to involve other students in their mission, and then founded a nonprofit organization called "Drinking Water for India." They then began to make presentations at other schools about the dire need for fresh water in India. So far, more than 450 students at 23 schools have joined their cause, by forming clubs that fund-raise regularly, or by collecting money on their own. As a result, nearly three dozen poor villages in India have new wells. "Clean water is a basic right," said Rujul. "All deserve to have access to it."

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Rocco Fiorentino
Rocco, an eighth-grader at Voorhees Middle School, is a dedicated advocate for children who are blind like him or visually impaired, striving over the past nine years to increase government funding for Braille services and educate others about the abilities of people with visual challenges. Sightless since birth, Rocco realized in kindergarten that he could not keep up with his classmates, who could practice reading many hours each week while he received Braille instruction from a state-provided teacher for only one hour. Frustrated that I could not read as fast as my classmates, I complained to my parents," he said. "I wanted to learn Braille, but the state would not provide the service."

Rocco spoke to a local legislator, and then testified before the New Jersey General Assembly. "The legislators had no idea I was receiving such little time for Braille instruction," he said, so instead of enacting a proposed cut in services, they voted a $1.2 million increase to give every blind child an additional four hours of Braille instruction per week. Since then, Rocco has continued to lobby on behalf of the visually challenged at both the state and national level. He also has petitioned governors in every state to recognize October as Blindness Awareness Month; five have done so. In addition, Rocco gives speeches across the country, visits more than 50 schools a year to increase understanding of blindness, and mentors other blind children to, in Rocco's words, "be the best they can be."

Cassandra Lin
Cassandra, a seventh-grader at Westerly Middle School, launched a program that collects more than 36,000 gallons of waste cooking oil a year from 95 restaurants and thousands of households in nine towns in Rhode Island and Connecticut, and converts it into heating fuel for needy families. A newspaper article about Rhode Island families that could not afford heat in the winter caught Cassandra's attention. "I could not imagine how families could live without heat in the harsh New England winters," she said. Then, during a visit to an environmental expo at the University of Rhode Island, Cassandra learned that waste cooking oil could be refined into biodiesel, a cleaner-burning source of alternative energy. "An idea popped into my head - if we can generate this fuel from waste, we can help these financially stressed families heat their homes," Cassandra said.

After researching the idea and determining it was viable, Cassandra formed a team of five seventh-graders and toured a local biodiesel facility to learn more about the refining process. They then persuaded their town council to place a grease receptacle at the town's transfer station where residents could dump their kitchen grease. Next, they visited restaurants in the area to see if they would save and donate their waste cooking oil. To promote their effort, the students made multiple presentations to elementary school students, distributed thousands of flyers and kitchen calendars at schools and supermarkets, and made a radio public service announcement. Cassandra's project, called TGIF for "Turn Grease Into Fuel," works with local biofuel companies to recycle the grease and with local charities to identify families that need heating assistance. So far, TGIF's efforts have enabled 92 families to keep warm during the cold winters. "Volunteering has made me proud of myself," said Cassandra, "especially when I could show that my project has helped people and the environment at the same time."

Tyler Page
Tyler, an eighth-grader at J. Douglas Adams Middle School, held a car wash hoping to rescue just one child from being sold into slavery in Ghana, but ended up sparking a kids' fund-raising enterprise that has involved hundreds of young people and has generated more than $100,000 for a variety of children's causes. When he was 10, Tyler saw a television program about children in Ghana sold by their parents into forced fishing labor. "I couldn't stand how they were being treated, so I decided to do something about it," he said. He proposed the idea of a car wash to his fourth-grade class, and invited everyone who wanted to help. Tyler's goal was to raise $240 - enough to support one Ghanaian child for a year. But when the car wash was over, he had $1,175 in hand.

Realizing then the power of kids to make a difference, Tyler started recruiting young people throughout his community to help him raise money. They hosted more car washes, sold cookies, set up lemonade stands, and conducted other fund-raisers. His mother helped him establish a nonprofit organization called Kids Helping Kids and a website to inspire kids everywhere to make a difference in their communities and to support their own fund-raising ideas. To date, $100,000 has been raised to aid children in Ghana, as well as to provide books for young victims of Hurricane Katrina, meals for local needy families, candy for troops in Iraq, assistance to kids with major medical expenses, and other causes. "The funny thing is, I've learned that it really isn't about the money at all," said Tyler. "It seems to me that it is really about connecting the human spirit."

Rachel Wheeler
Rachel, a fifth-grader at Zion Lutheran Christian School in Deerfield Beach, launched a fund-raising campaign that has raised more than $162,000 to build a new 25-home village in Leogane, Haiti, near the epicenter of the earthquake that occurred in January 2010. Two years ago, Rachel and her mother visited Food For The Poor (FFP), an international relief and development agency based in Florida, and learned about the charity's work in Haiti from President/CEO Robin Mahfood. "When I saw the before and after pictures of the families he has helped, I knew he was doing God's work and I had to help," said Rachel.

At the suggestion of the Lighthouse Point Chamber of Commerce president, Rachel attended a chamber meeting and stood on a chair in front of more than 100 business people to talk about her desire to build homes in Haiti. Then she started appealing to friends, neighbors, and fellow karate students. Her school soon jumped on the bandwagon. Next, FFP issued a press release about Rachel's efforts, and the news media interviewed her after each milestone. As donations flowed in, Rachel decided that instead of just reaching her original goal of building 13 houses, she would build an entire village, complete with sanitation and potable water. To date, Rachel has raised more than $162,000 to construct "Rachel's Village," and helped to inspire the Florida Marlins baseball team to build a village in Haiti. "I would tell other young people that we are the future, and we need to stand up for those who have nothing," said Rachel. 

Glennita Williams
Glennita, an eighth-grader at McKinley Junior High School, has collected snacks and personal care items worth more than $14,000, including more than 600 pounds of Hostess Twinkies, for shipment to American troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past four years.When Glennita learned that a friend's father in Iraq had a craving for Twinkies, "I felt all the soldiers must be craving something sweet from home," she said. She asked her principal and teacher if her class could help collect Twinkies for the troops, and just 10 days later 1,000 of the golden sponge cakes were shipped overseas.

The next year, Glennita spoke at a student assembly to ask her whole school to collect care items and books, and to draw pictures for veterans at a nearby VA hospital. She then arranged for the school choir to sing at the facility and help distribute 160 care packets. In addition, Glennita sent another 3,000 Twinkies to Iraq and Afghanistan. Over the past two years, she has involved her entire community in her collection drives, asking businesses, churches, schools and civic organizations to help, and encouraging residents to bring donations to various drop-off points. So far, more than 750 servicemen and women have benefited from Glennita's efforts. She has started an organization called "America's Guardian Angels" and created a website (www.americasguardianangels.org) to do even more in the future. "It's important for me to do this volunteer work because it helps people (especially young people) understand that our protection and freedom comes from the sacrifice of servicemen and women, their families, and friends," she said.

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