2009 National Honorees
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Ten young Americans were selected in the 2009 Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program for national recognition based on their outstanding achievements in community service. The National Selection Committee that chose the National Honorees was chaired by Prudential Chairman and CEO John R. Strangfeld. Also serving on the committee were Larry Bradley, president of the National Association of Secondary School Principals; Michelle Nunn, president and CEO of the Points of Light & HandsOn Network; Marguerite Kondracke, president and CEO of the America’s Promise Alliance; Kathy Cloninger, CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA; 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 2008 Prudential Spirit of Community National Honorees: Kristen Allcorn of Sedalia, Mo., and Shanna Decker of Plainview, Minn. The 2009 National Honorees are: |
| High School National Honorees |
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Brittany Bergquist, 18, of Norwell, Mass., a senior at Norwell High School, co-founded a nonprofit organization that has purchased nearly 700,000 prepaid phone cards for American servicemen and women by collecting and recycling used cell phones. Five years ago, Brittany saw a TV news story about a young soldier stationed in the Middle East who was struggling to pay a large cell phone bill. “I knew I had to do something to help him and all the other soldiers trying to keep in touch with loved ones while far away from home,” she said. Brittany told her parents she wanted to use her piggybank savings to help the soldier pay his bill, and then she and her younger brother organized car washes and yard and bake sales to raise more money.
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Jeremy Bui, 18, of Enfield, Conn., a senior at Enfield High School, co-founded the Viet-Sun Foundation and has raised nearly $2,000 to fund scholarships for poor children in Vietnam. Jeremy’s mother and father grew up in that country and escaped its poverty to become successful in America. In the summer of 2007, they took their children to Vietnam for the first time. “Our parents had decided we were old enough to witness the struggles Vietnamese peasants endure daily,” said Jeremy. But he was not prepared for the devastating poverty he witnessed. He and his family gave rice and money to the villagers, but Jeremy decided that the only way to help the children rise above a life of poverty was to give them an education.
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Shardy Camargo, 18, of Orlando, Fla., a senior at Maynard Evans High School, led a group of 40 high school students in writing and publishing a book about homeless people after experiencing homelessness herself a few years earlier. “During my freshman year in high school, we lost everything we had, and my mother took me out of school until she could find a stable place to live,” said Shardy. Soon after, she began volunteering at the Coalition for the Homeless in Orlando, and formed strong bonds with the families there. “I wanted to truly help the families at the coalition and I knew I had to inspire others to really make a change,” Shardy said.
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Colin Leslie, 17, of Rye, N.Y., a junior at Rye High School, has raised more than $150,000 for the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University over the past three years by organizing an annual walkathon in his community. When he was 14, Colin began experiencing excruciating joint pain and migraine headaches. After four months of visits to many specialists, he was finally diagnosed with celiac disease, a genetic autoimmune disorder triggered by eating gluten from wheat, barley, or rye. The difficulty that doctors had in diagnosing his ailment convinced Colin that something needed to be done to increase awareness of celiac. He decided on a walkathon.
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Melissa Monette, 16, of Mililani, Hawaii, a junior at Mililani High School, founded a nonprofit organization that has provided more than 13,000 pounds of fresh produce and canned goods to low-income senior citizens and homeless people over the past two years. Melissa became aware of poverty in her community by participating in church, school, and Girl Scout programs to aid the needy. But the problem really hit home when her own grandmother turned to a food pantry for help and was denied assistance because she was not homeless. “It is very difficult and traumatic for (seniors) when they get turned away from nonprofit agencies distributing food because they are not poor enough to qualify,” said Melissa.
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| Middle-Level National Honorees |
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Amanda LaMunyon, 14, of Enid, Okla., an eighth-grader at Oklahoma Bible Academy, performs at charitable events, sells cards and prints of her paintings to raise money for sick children, and draws upon her experience with autism to educate others about the disorder. After Amanda was diagnosed at age 8 with Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism, her parents encouraged various activities to find something that would help her focus. “Thankfully, they found that I could paint, and I learned to focus on something I loved,” Amanda said. She discovered she had the ability to help others when she gave one of her paintings to a former teacher who had cancer and later learned that it had greatly lifted her spirits while she was dying. “I couldn’t believe something I had done meant so much,” she said. “This changed the entire direction of my life.”
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Morgan Mariner, 13, of Douglas, Wyo., a member of the Converse County 4-H and an eighth-grader at Douglas Middle School, has conducted a vigorous campaign over the past three years against the problem of bullying in schools. Morgan began her campaign after seeing the impact that bullying had on her little brother when he was a third-grader. “He was bullied terribly,” she said. “It broke my heart to see him so sad and hate school so much.” She knew she could make a difference if given the chance to speak out and share his story. So she started giving speeches at elementary schools, 4-H gatherings, student council sessions, and even PTA and city council meetings. She also traveled to other school districts in Wyoming to deliver her message that “it’s cool to be kind.” In addition, Morgan read books about kindness and bullies to pre-school children at the public library, and used her own money to buy and distribute silicone wristbands bearing the slogan, “Kind Kids Rock.”
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Sean Nathan, 14, of Shreveport, La., an eighth-grader at Caddo Parish Middle Magnet School, throws birthday parties every month for children staying at a local homeless shelter. He got the idea two years ago while he and his brother were playing Christmas carols at the Providence House shelter. “Afterwards, one of the kids told us that he never got to celebrate his birthday,” said Sean. “I was shocked.” He asked the coordinator if they could start hosting birthday parties, and the “Providence House Birthday Bash” was born.
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Shelby Romero, 12, of Hutto, Tex., a member of the Williamson County 4-H in Georgetown and a seventh-grader at Farley Middle School in Hutto, organized a charity bicycle ride and other events that have raised nearly $400,000 over the past three years for a horseback-riding therapy center for disabled children. Shelby, a horse fan and rider, got the idea when she learned that her dentist’s young son received therapy for his cerebral palsy at the Ride On Center for Kids (R.O.C.K.). “I thought it would be cool to have a community service project that would help kids and horses,” she said.
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Beatrice Thaman, 12, of Toledo, Ohio, a home-schooled sixth-grader, started a donation and fund-raising drive that has enabled her to provide 175,000 vitamin tablets for malnourished children in Guatemala, a year’s supply for more than 500 children. When her family adopted Beatrice’s younger sister from Guatemala, Beatrice learned about the country and its poverty, but she didn’t act until a family friend, Dr. Anne Ruch, returned from a medical mission and described the desperation there. “I felt compelled to help,” Beatrice said.
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