10 winning tales of hope, inspiration

Changing destiny -- that's the uncommon goal of these wildly different people. Meet a tutoring teen, a giving boy and an ex-addict who wants to help others overcome.

10th Annual Honorees:

Love & food to an orphanage, Texas Students mentor students, Okla. Spreading literacy, USA Former addict gives back, Calif. Teens clearing trash, Calif.	Army base helping, Texas Army projects, Hawaii 9-Year-old inspires others, Ill. Free surgery restores sight, Miss. Kids buy books for friend, Wash.
Contact your local volunteer center Check state-by-state listing for addresses for donations

School and town pour out love and food to a poor orphanage
LAREDO, Texas -- Rooms with dirt floors, half as many cribs as babies, and toddlers begging for food and hugs -- that's what volunteers from Nye Elementary School found across the border at a destitute Mexican orphanage. So Nye's families, though cash-strapped themselves, adopted the orphanage and rallied Laredo to the cause. The result: donations of diapers, food, appliances and $11,000 cash; repairs to the orphanage; and free surgery for a tyke's cleft lip. The Make A Difference Day project continues, and at many visits, orphanage founder "Mama Lupita" Carmona welcomes volunteers with tears of thanks. $10,000 award from Newman's Own benefits The Provider Outreach Inc., Laredo.

Student creates mentoring program to turn young lives around
MULDROW, Okla. -- Orphaned as a baby, Brendan Shepard, 9, struggled with life and school. Then Kyle Alderson, 15, brought Brendan into READ (Reading Encourages All Dreams), a teens-tutoring-kids project that Alderson founded on Make A Difference Day. Today, Brendan's grades are up, and his spirits are, too. Each week, 30 elementary students meet with the town's teen tutors, who've become role models and friends. Children's author Ann Tyzo, who donates books to the program, says Alderson "changed these kids' destiny." $10,000 Newman's Own award benefits Eastern Sequoyah County Oklahoma Friends of the Muldrow Library Inc.

Altrusa International spreads the word on literacy
NATIONWIDE -- Thanks to the service organization Altrusa International, the light of literacy beamed on Make A Difference Day. In Quincy, Mass., 350 poor children left a "literacy party" with new books. In Eugene, Ore., housing project residents got their own library. And in Denton, Texas, when mentally disabled adults got a truckload of colorful magazines, "their faces lit up," says volunteer Lisa Kennon. "You could hear the rustle of turning pages." In all, 2,040 Altrusans touched 24,000 lives across the USA and in faraway New Zealand and Russia. $10,000 award from Newman's Own benefits Altrusa International Foundation Inc.

Go to top

Former addict gives homeless some soap -- and hope
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. -- When she was a crack addict sleeping in doorways, Giovanni Jackson relied on small mercies -- a plastic poncho, a bar of soap. Now she donates those items to others trying to do what she did: kick drugs and find work. On Make A Difference Day, Jackson, 42, delivered 100 care packages to a Salinas day shelter. Because Jackson is "one of their own," the shelter director says, she shows other homeless people there is hope for them. Still sleeping in shelters until her truck-driver earnings can cover rent, Jackson shares credit for her Make A Difference Day project: "Me and God did this." $10,000 award from Newman's Own benefits Dorothy's Place, Salinas, Calif.

Teens clear trash for kids
GOSHEN, Calif. -- This impoverished farming town had hundreds of kids, dozens of trash-strewn vacant lots, but not one playground. So 13-year-old Clifton Giddings and other teens set out "to make the environment safer for kids to play." They started small on Make A Difference Day three years ago, clearing 40 cubic yards of litter. By Make A Difference Day 2000, it took 13 trips to the dump to haul away what 300 volunteers collected: 40 tons of garbage, 1,000 tires and 5,000 pounds of hazardous waste. On a lot once teeming with trash, teens planted 15 trees -- the start, they hope, of a community park. $10,000 award from Newman's Own benefits Goshen Planning Committee.

12,000 from Army base and town help 28,000
FORT HOOD and KILLEEN, Texas -- At the nation's largest military base and in its central Texas community, Make A Difference Day has grown in six years from a scant 20 projects to more than 135, from a few hundred volunteers to 12,000. The Make A Difference Day 2000 blitzkrieg of good works included book and clothing drives, visits to hospitals and nursing homes, school renovations, meals for the homeless and a bowling outing for Special Olympians. Fort Hood's Peggy Stamper says volunteers feel so good about Make A Difference Day that as soon as one's over, they start planning the next: "It's taken on a life of its own." $10,000 award from Newman's Own benefits Killeen Volunteers Inc.

Go to top

Army rallies to 100 projects
HONOLULU -- Satsue Abe savored views she thought she'd never see again -- because on Make A Difference Day, Army volunteers transported the wheelchair-bound Abe and other nursing home residents to a scenic mountaintop. Majestic Diamond Head no longer wears a halo of trash: Army volunteers rappelled off the volcanic crater's steep slopes, removing debris. Across Oahu last Oct. 28, more than 2,100 soldiers, family members and Army Department civilians participated in more than 100 projects -- showing, says Major Gen. William E. Ward, "the kind of caring people we have." $10,000 award from Newman's Own benefits Hawaii Food Bank, Honolulu, and the Hawaii Chapter of the Association of the United States Army, Wahiawa.

30 kids do chores for books
KENNEWICK, Wash. -- Illness claimed most of Maddy Rannow's eyesight -- but caring classmates are helping her read again. Though a benign tumor near her optic nerve was successfully removed, 9-year-old Maddy permanently lost 90% of her vision. Fellow fourth-graders at Washington Elementary wanted to help: 30 of them got friends and relatives to pledge donations for chores. Then, in a joint effort for Make A Difference Day and Pizza Hut's BOOK IT! reading incentive program, the kids raked, baked, cleaned, ran errands -- and raised $1,100 to buy giant-print and recorded books for the school library. Maddy, who raised $90 herself, says she's "excited to get books I can read." $10,000 award from Newman's Own benefits visually impaired students in the Kennewick School District.

Free surgery restores sight to 8 people
HATTIESBURG, Miss. -- One man couldn't see to work, one woman couldn't see to shop, another couldn't find her fork on the table -- until Make A Difference Day, when their lives were transformed by free cataract surgery. That day, the Southern Eye Center did $32,000 of surgery on eight patients, tough cases whose cataracts had gone untreated for years because they couldn't afford it. Now Bertha Martinez, 77, can find her fork and even read: "I will never be able to repay their kindness." $10,000 award from Newman's Own benefits United Way of Southeast Mississippi.

9-year-old's collection inspires strangers
MUNDELEIN, Ill. -- When Ryan Fosnow bought school supplies last fall, the suburban Chicago fourth-grader asked his mother: Can we get extras for my class? At Washington Elementary School, where a third of students come from low-income homes, Ryan saw classmates using crayon stubs, or bashfully borrowing paper. Instead of handing her son a $5 bill, Mary Fosnow gave Ryan a copy of USA WEEKEND Magazine that invited people to help others on Make A Difference Day. Ryan typed a school supply donation list on the computer and solicited friends and relatives. Then, four days before Make A Difference Day, a Daily Herald story mentioned Ryan's project and gave his phone number and address. When Joyce Wagstaff, 65, saw the article, "I just melted." Although emphysema keeps her constantly on oxygen, Wagstaff shopped, then drove to Ryan's home. Mary Fosnow says, "It broke my heart -- a complete stranger with an oxygen tank connected to her. She had gone by herself, dragging this heavy thing, and bought two bags full. And I thought, 'This is what it's all about.' " When another reader, Chuck Killian, dropped off a load of school supplies, Ryan thought, 'That guy must be rich!' " Only later did the Fosnows learn that Killian, 43, has terminal cancer. By donating, Killian says, he's living his belief -- and, he hopes, reinforcing Ryan's -- "that doing good things for other people is a nice way to live."

$10,000 award from Newman's Own benefits the Family Resource Center of Washington Elementary School.

Go to top

Points of Light can help you help others

April 22-28 is National Volunteer Week, one of many programs led by The Points of Light Foundation, the leading non-profit, non-partisan organization supporting volunteers who help to solve serious social problems. The foundation and its network of 500 local volunteer centers are vital partners in Make A Difference Day. "Use your gifts," urges Robert K. Goodwin, president and CEO of the foundation. "Every person can forge meaningful connections in the lives of others." To find a volunteer center near you, call 1-800-865-8683 or visit pointsoflight.org.