National Awards

Blissfield, Mich.

National Award to four Blissfield, Mich., eighth-graders: Stephanie Powell, left, Natalie Eisenmann (in tree), Christi Stoker and Amanda Nicolai. They not only recruited 475 people to renovate a shelter, but also helped a teen living there, Mahalganie Wilson, second from left, settle into an apartment with her mother.

Christi Stoker, 13, lives in a cozy home in Blissfield with "a lot I take for granted." On a church outing, she saw the spare conditions of a homeless shelter in nearby Toledo, Ohio, and felt sad for the kids who lived there.

She told her best friends; they told others in their farming community. Soon, they rounded up money, supplies and 475 volunteers to help realize Christi's dream: making shelter children feel "more like they had a home."

On Make A Difference Day, the entire 45-room Family House shelter got a face lift, complete with loving touches like wallpaper borders and pastel paint jobs. One teen living at the shelter, 13-year-old Mahalganie Wilson, quickly proved better at hanging wallpaper than Christi and friends. The girls found they had much in common, including a fondness for bell-bottoms and Bon Bon nail polish. Across the line between giver and recipient, a fast friendship formed.

At day's end, $300 in donations was left. The girls used it to help Mahalganie and mom Tracy Wilson, 30, settle into an apartment of their own.

"It was a hard time for us," Wilson says of the months she and Mahalganie lived at the shelter. But one Saturday in October, "when other kids were at the stores or the movies, this great bunch of girls were there helping."

$2,000 award will benefit The Family House, Toledo, Ohio.

Photo Credit: KIT WALLING FOR USA WEEKEND.

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