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2002 Local Awards
Are
your neighbors listed among these special awards for helping others
Oct. 27, 2001? Find
honorees in your state!
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Nebraska
Newspaper Awards
 Beatrice Daily Sun. 7 children, ages 4 to 11, and 7 adults from Peace United Methodist Church of Plymouth dressed up for Halloween and went "pumpkin caroling" at 3 senior care and disability facilities, touching the lives of 70 dependent seniors and their caregivers.
Fremont Tribune. 8 youths, ages 6 to 16, and 4 adults from Catholic Workman Branch 17 of Plasi helped an elderly woman clear her yard of debris and winterize her home.
Grand Island Independent. 52 Eakes Office Plus employees and family members gave $3,000, 1 ton of clothing, and thousands of books and non-perishables to 6 non-profits, including 924 pounds of crushed recyclables to benefit Habitat for Humanity.
Lincoln Journal Star. DECA, a group of marketing students, joined with the Lincoln Education Association and the Lincoln Journal Star to encourage reading among young children. 50 volunteers, many dressed as storybook characters, held a tailgate party before a Nebraska Cornhusker football game to raise enough money to buy 15,000 books, creating a read-athon for Lincoln's 4,712 1st- and 2nd-graders.
York News-Times. 16 members of the First Lutheran Youth Club held a "Rake and Run." After identifying needy elderly and disabled members of their church, they loaded into 2 cars and "ran" from location to location, raking yards on the way.
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Nevada
Encore Award
Sparks. Children Diana Vaden, Kristal and Trevor DeRuise raised $1,300 for lupus research in 1999 by selling rocks hand-painted to resemble ladybugs. To date, they've raised $16,000 that way, plus $1,000 for animal cancer research. Oct. 27, the DeRuises, now 12 and 10, teamed on a new project with Corrine Coyne, 12, who was hit by a drunk driver at age 5 and uses a wheelchair. Their Walk-(and Roll)-A-Thon raised $2,000 for the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, American Veterinary Medical Foundation and Lupus Foundation of America. The $2,500 award, funded by the Gannett Foundation, benefits the Lupus Foundation of America.
Newspaper Awards
Las Vegas Review-Journal. The Harrah's Seniors Coalition, composed of 18 community and business groups, mobilized 200 volunteers to "adopt" the Monsignor Shallows Apartments for low-income seniors. On Oct. 27, armed with $20,000 in donations, the volunteers cleaned, painted, repaired, renovated and beautified 45 apartments (half of the building). They also built a covered patio and picnic area over a courtyard; transformed a laundry room into a "country store" where residents can sell crafts; and entertained and visited residents. Now the coalition plans twice-yearly projects at other low-income senior housing complexes around the city.
Reno Gazette-Journal. 15 volunteers from Washoe Arc, including 10 with developmental disabilities, helped 100 people in 20 low-income families by making and delivering care baskets to meet each family's special needs. Included: blankets, toiletries, household goods and sweets.
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New Hampshire
Newspaper awards
Concord Monitor. Inspired by their school's 90-year-old custodian, home alone since his wife died in 2000, 20 Pembroke Academy students created "Vital Vials," a medical information system that helps emergency personnel respond to calls from the elderly. Students went door-to-door handing out information about the program, in which seniors post a "Vital Vials" card on their doors and hang pill containers holding medical information inside their refrigerators.
(Dover) Foster's Sunday Citizen. 8 Holy Trinity Lutheran Church youth group members tackled the yards of 3 church seniors, spending 2 hours at each house raking leaves, cleaning flower beds and sprucing up exteriors.
Keene Sentinel. 72 Marlborough School language arts students, parents and staffers raked leaves, cleaned a beach, held story time at a library, picked up yard debris at a playground and collected stuffed animals for children of the 9/11 Pentagon attack.
(Lebanon-Hanover) Valley News. The Make A Difference Day deeds of 30 4-H'ers and their parents in Charlestown were broadcast nationally on the PBS kids' show Zoom. TV cameras filmed the group building a bridge over a gully between a school and the woods and trails behind it. The children also cleared trails of stumps and debris.
(Nashua) Telegraph. Some of the 100 congregants of Grace Lutheran Church congregants planted 500 red, white and blue tulip bulbs at a fire station; others painted a ministry building; still others renovated a mission that serves 1,000 inner-city families.
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New Jersey
Newspaper awards
(Bridgewater) Courier News. In Middlesex, Daisy Schoenrock, 82, collected 422 items of non-perishable food by asking every resident in her apartment building of 85 units for help. She then counted, sorted and packed goods into 100 shopping bags, and her building's mini-bus transported it all to the FISH food pantry.
(Cherry Hill) Courier-Post. 25 volunteers representing the Kelly Anne Dolan Memorial Fund -- which helps uninsured low-income parents of sick children pay basic household bills, in memory of a child who died of leukemia -- fulfilled the wish lists of 3 such families. After calling on the community for donations of furniture, appliances, bedding, baby supplies, toys, food, bedroom sets and other items, the volunteers delivered the goods in 3 trucks, 1 minivan and 1 SUV on Oct. 27. When Samantha Cichon, 10, heard that a 4-year-old girl with leukemia was among the recipients, she gave her the new hot-pink bicycle she had received in a character recognition program at school.
(East Brunswick) Home News Tribune. In Somerset, 6 members of the First Baptist Church's Jesus and Me (JAM) Youth Ministry, ages 13 to 16, raked leaves and cleaned yards of 4 senior church members. The "Rake and Run" patrol left notes saying the seniors had been hit by an "act of love."
(Morristown) Daily Record. In Hackettstown, Tom Bellobuono, daughter Lauren, and 11 friends and co-workers raised $150 for a 9/11 fund and collected 161 cans for 2 food pantries, in memory of Anna E. Bellobuono and Cheryl Hafner.
(Neptune) Asbury Park Press. In Spring Lake, Ryan Cameron, 18, and his siblings Julianne, 15, and John, 13, held a 4-mile boardwalk walk-athon for DOORS, serving people with autism. Sparked by their wish to help their brother Scott, 11, who is autistic, the Camerons raised $12,000 from supporters of the 100 walkers. The siblings decided to give half the money to 9/11 relief efforts.
(Newton) New Jersey Sunday Herald. In Vernon, 1,000 5th- and 6th-graders in the schoolwide Enrichment Program at Lounsberry Hollow Middle School held a month-long effort that included a contest to design T-shirts and buttons to sell Oct. 27 and an agreement with a pizzeria that donated $2 for each pizza sold in 1 day. Students set up shop at the Franklin Wal-Mart, adding Peace Pops and baked goods to the other sale items. The students gave $4,000 to 9/11 relief.
(Pleasantville) Press of Atlantic City. Amanda Feldman, a 10th-grader at Mainland Regional High, and Peer Partners, the youth volunteer group she founded, staged a talent show at the Margate Performing Arts Center for the Red Cross 9/11 fund. Peer Partners raised $3,000, including $1,750 in ticket sales and $1,250 from a silent auction, including autographed sports memorabilia from the Philadelphia Flyers and Phillies, Pittsburgh Penguins and New York Yankees; store gift certificates; and "Bears of Care" from residents in Ketchikan, Alaska.
(Toms River) Ocean County Observer. 25 7th- and 8th-graders from the Warm Up America crochet and Afterschool Sewing clubs at Toms River Intermediate School West made and stuffed 100 "care cloths," washcloths with sewn compartments for toiletries. The cloths went to a women's shelter and a Lakewood homeless agency.
(Trenton) Trentonian. In Lambertville, Julie Perrine, 15, a member of the Creative Horse Crafts 4-H Club, sewed the quilt she would donate to the Stanton Grange as part of that group's efforts to bring comfort to trauma patients.
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New Mexico
Newspaper Awards
Albuquerque Journal. Led by Sandia National Laboratories/Lockheed Martin, 1,700 volunteers from 32 companies and organizations completed 116 projects to help 52 charitable groups. They cleaned mountain trails, helped with a Mothers Against Drunk Driving ribbon campaign, packaged food at a food bank and bagged personal items for displaced children. They also cleaned the property of a senior citizen, saving her from city code violation fines.
Carlsbad Current-Argus. 2 members of Students in Free Enterprise at the College of the Southwest donated food for 10 homeless people through Manna Outreach, a shelter in Hobbs.
(Farmington) Daily Times. In a 12-hour blitz in Bloomfield, 10 RSVP, 14 Senior Companion Program and 7 AmeriCorps*VISTA volunteers from San Juan College tied red, white and blue ribbons on a fence bordering Naaba Ani Elementary School in a U.S. flag pattern. Then 452 students from the school, along with families and teachers, joined in a citywide cleanup, hauling away 14 bags of trash and pulling up weeds. Kids helped adults dig a ditch and landscape at Bloomfield Senior Center to create a duck creek with natural diversions, and the whole crew cheered residents at the Bloomfield Nursing Home.
Gallup Independent. 6 volunteers -- including a physician and Navajo community leaders -- were experts and escorts on a bus tour that began at sunrise in Red Rock State Park and traveled into uranium mining country, 10 miles northeast of Gallup. Sponsored by the University of New Mexico, the seminar, attended by 150 people, aimed to educate concerned citizens on the effects of mining on the New Mexico landscape.
Roswell Daily Record. Roswell Industrial Air Center held its 1st luncheon to raise money for the Pecos Valley HARC HIV/AIDS food bank. For the price of a ticket, participants received a hot dog lunch on a handmade pottery plate. Raised: $2,680.
New York
National Award
New York State Department of Correctional Services. The collapse of the World Trade Center reverberated deep inside New York state prisons, where 77% of inmates have roots in the New York City area. Every Make A Difference Day the prison system reaches out, but this year was different: 15,000 prisoners (25% of the population) and 5,000 staffers mobilized. Together, $162,761 and tons of goods were donated to 9/11 relief. They also did traditional volunteering: stocked food pantries, fed seniors and the homeless, collected school supplies for needy children, upholstered pews at a church, made dollhouses and wooden trains for abused children in a shelter, built a park gazebo, and raised $31,000 to fight breast cancer and other diseases. This day was about rebuilding community. The $10,000 award, funded by Newman's Own, goes to New York State World Trade Center Relief Fund.
Newspaper Awards
(Binghamton) Press & Sun-Bulletin. 7 volunteers of VFW Ladies Auxiliary 2332 in Johnson City held a clothing and book drive for students at Lincoln Elementary and their families. The summer-long collection from members, churches, a clothing shop and other donors netted $8,150 in goods and 500 books for the low-income students. Items were displayed and distributed in the school cafeteria Oct. 27. The line of donated shoes stretched half the length of the school building.
(Dunkirk) Observer. For its 10th Make A Difference Day, Forestville Central School mobilized 375 students, relatives, teachers, staffers and community donors in Forestville to raise funds for the Roswell Pediatric Unit and 9/11 firefighter victims' families in New York City. Through a read-athon, Penny Harvest, and sales of toys, books, Christmas cards and T-shirts with a design honoring firefighters, the school raised $3,019.49. They donated $500 to the hospital in memory of former principal Pamela Murphy Cleary, who died several years ago. The remainder went to a firehouse that lost firefighters on 9/11.
(Elmira) Star-Gazette. Hendy Avenue Elementary's 600 students collected 20 big boxes of winter clothing and boots for 100 people in need. After they sorted items by size, "Project Bundle Up" culminated in an Oct. 27 clothes giveaway at the school, conducted by students, teachers and parents.
(Glens Falls) Post Star. Kensington Road Elementary's 240 students, with help from families, teachers and staff members, collected 700 books for 5 care agencies, a preschool and their own classroom libraries. Each book had a label noting it was a Make A Difference Day gift; students also created laminated bookmarks to distribute.
Ithaca Journal. 12 Cornell University students, members of the Golden Key International Honor Society, helped Cayuga Nature Center host its Halloween events for 50 children, ages 2 to 14. They told scary stories on the way to a "haunted house," guided children down an "enchanted trail," and helped with pumpkin painting, games, a hayride and refreshments.
(Jamestown) Post-Journal. 40 Chautauqua County Special Olympics bowlers collected items for a food kitchen and the Chautauqua County Humane Society. They donated enough food to feed 110 people and added $44 to the kitchen's haul. Newspapers, bleach, towels, and kitten and puppy food went to animals in need, along with 1 volunteer's $40 donation of items, including chew toys.
(Kingston) Daily Freeman. In Rifton, 24 volunteers, including the 5th- and 6th-grade class at Woodcrest School, dedicated a "Garden of the Future." They prepared the site on the school grounds for a 15-foot totem pole featuring visionaries; a tree will be the garden's center, with "spokes" marking world areas in need of peace.
New York Daily News. After treating 300 injured on 9/11, Belleville Hospital Center held a Make A Difference Day effort: 19 volunteers visited 380 patients with teddy bears and good wishes. A British man visiting New York read about the plans online and arrived with good cheer and a gift that went to a patient who had survived 9/11.
Niagara (Falls) Gazette. Mobilized by Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts, residents gave 20,000 pounds of clothing -- filling an 18-wheeler -- to the needy through the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. 100 Scouts and their families distributed fliers in an 8-square-mile area, then sorted the haul Oct. 27.
Olean Times Herald. In Portville, Central School 9th-grader Jared Warner and his parents, Mia and Michael, with help from the Little Genesee Quilters, started their "United States Youth Remembrance Quilt," for which 25 schools in 13 states contributed quilt squares to memorialize 9/11. Delivered March 25 to P.S. 89, in the same block as New York's Ground Zero, the 10-by-12-foot quilt contains a Nevada school's piece honoring its teacher who was in the plane that hit the Pentagon.
(Oswego) Palladium-Times. Mobilized by Rotary District 7150, 480 members, families, students and community volunteers conducted projects in 6 counties. Representing half of the district's Rotary clubs, volunteers cleaned highways, served meals to the homeless, raised 9/11 funds, collected food for shelters and gathered mittens and school supplies for needy students. 1 club did maintenance work at a children's museum; another provided and installed lighting for an American flag flying at the town's library.
Poughkeepsie Journal. Dutchess County Habitat for Humanity mobilized 25 workers to finish installing siding at the Staatsburg home of a National Guardsman who was partially paralyzed by a Sept. 8 training accident in which he was shot in the head. Before the accident, Richard Connolly, 39, had been working to replace his home's siding. Without Habitat's help, his wife and 4 children would have faced winter in an unfinished house. Workers from as far away as Hopewell Junction began arriving at 7 a.m. and hammered the last nail in the soffit by flashlight at 7 p.m. Says wife Dina Taylor: "Those guys are a godsend."
(Rochester) Democrat and Chronicle. Led by 15-year-old Amiyra Abdullah-Muhammad, 10 volunteers, including friends and representatives from city care organizations, planned an event promoting peace for 125 citizens, many of whose lives have been affected by violence. Abdullah-Muhammad and friends organized arts and crafts, peace-making games, music, a reading of peace poems and a Peace March. Agencies supplied information on violence prevention and victim support.
(Saratoga Springs) Saratogian. 50 members of the 13th Regiment Corps of Cadets, a counter-drug and counter-violence organization for kids ages 10 to 17, collected 100 books for a hospital.
(Schenectady) Daily Gazette. 12 Union College students, tutors and community volunteers kicked off a rehab project to expand the COCOA (Children of Our Community Open to Achievement) House program for at-risk kids. To prepare for the opening of the old house later this year, the workers cleared debris, pulled ceilings down and linoleum flooring up, and removed doors and appliances. The program is affiliated with the Schenectady Inner City Ministry.
(Troy) Sunday Record. Led by 40 Knickerbacker Middle School students in grades 6-8, 54 volunteers cleaned and beautified Oakwood Cemetery and restored part of its Earl Chapel. The students and their helpers raked leaves, weeded and mulched gardens to spruce up the 150-year-old non-sectarian cemetery.
(Utica) Observer-Dispatch. At Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary, Mrs. Juidiciani's and Mrs. DePerno's 3rd- and 4th-grade class reached out to New York City kids affected by 9/11. The 12 students conducted a book and fund-raising drive at a shopping mall, and volunteers dressed in red, white and blue, collecting 50 books and $640.79. The money bought more books; 150 books were sent to NYC schoolchildren.
Watertown Daily Times.70 Gouverneur Middle School students did service projects culminating Oct. 27 with a village cleanup. Students picked up garbage, bagged leaves at a cemetery and did yardwork for seniors. Other activities: collecting $100 in change; raising $100 at a "goodie raffle" and selling patriotic pins. $350 went to a food bank, the Make A Difference Day Scholarship Fund and President Bush's Afghan children's fund. Students also served their teachers lunch and sent cards to New York City firehouses.
(White Plains) Journal News. In Yorktown Heights, Donna Iennaco and her daughters, Stefanie, 19, and Kristina, 12, mobilized the Yorktown school district of 4,000 students to help 9/11 victims and heroes. Donations of cash and goods netted $7,318.77 for relief funds, 200 "friendship boxes" of toiletries for the Red Cross, supplies for a school near Ground Zero, care kits for Ground Zero workers and a flag made by 3rd-graders using their handprints as the 50 stars. On Oct. 27, the Iennacos, friends and the DeStefano family delivered 2 carloads of items to a firehouse in Brooklyn.
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North Carolina
Newspaper Awards
(Asheboro) Courier-Tribune. Led by the Pilot Club of Asheboro, 100 volunteers hosted a prom for 60 adults with developmental disabilities. Groups and individuals donated everything from formal wear to food, ice and even curling irons; Randolph Community College students made corsages and boutonnieres and took pictures of the promgoers as a DJ played dance music.
Asheville Citizen-Times. The Volunteer Center of Asheville and Buncombe County mobilized 353 volunteers, including 218 youth, to host an outdoor carnival for children in need and a Teen Challenge, in which teens challenged adults to improve their community. 76 children and family members from shelters and care agencies attended the carnival, with games, entertainment and lunch. The Teen Challenge netted 370 pounds of food for a food bank, along with needed items for 10 area non-profit organizations.
(Burlington) Times-News. Mary Chism of Gibsonville created Portable Poste, a 1-woman greeting card concession for seniors at a nursing home and rehab center. Armed with a balloon-festooned hat, a lap desk and blank greeting cards she created by computer, Chism made the home's rounds, inviting residents to put their wishes on greeting cards, which she then mailed. The project was so successful, she now takes her Portable Poste there monthly.
(Durham) Herald-Sun. In Prospect Hill, 40 members of Lea Bethel Baptist Church, led by its Median Adult I Sunday School class, hosted a hayride, pumpkin farm tour and supper for 20 Elon Home teenagers. The volunteers now have developed an ongoing relationship with the home and its residents.
(Gastonia) Gaston Gazette. The Volunteer Center of Gaston County mobilized 350 volunteers, including 114 children, at 37 locations. Projects included collecting food and books for those in need, making 80 hats for chemotherapy patients, beautifying schools and nursing homes, painting, sealing pavement, and work by Crowder's Mountain Fire Department to remove a tower and correct an erosion and flood control problem at a Girl Scout camp.
Goldsboro News-Argus. 250 members of the Wayne County 4-H collected and bought items for 177 shoebox "Care Boxes," which they gave to children at Wayne Memorial Hospital. The boxes, which were marked with the intended recipients' age group, contained coloring books, crayons, notepads, note cards, stickers and yo-yos.
(Henderson) Daily Dispatch. In a massive countywide cleanup, 1,000 Vance County residents, from children to seniors, cleaned 40 miles of county roads. Led by the Volunteer Center of United Way of Vance County, helpers organized into work groups at 23 fire departments and schools, then set out to clean their county, collecting 903 bags of trash and 24 tires with supplies donated by the state transportation department. In Dabney, a hunt club that accidentally came across a cleanup effort near an illegal dump site on Glover Road joined in the effort. Volunteers there carted away 5 pickup truckloads -- 15,864 pounds -- of "white goods," including abandoned toilets, refrigerators and other large appliances. Groups from schools, churches and businesses helped, along with families, Scouts and individuals. County firefighters and sheriffs kept traffic moving safely on roads where volunteers worked.
Hickory Daily Record. 50 Living Word Fellowship/Lovewalk Ministry volunteers held a neighborhood "Operation Lovewalk," reaching out to 300 residents with a day of food, fun, fellowship and free giveaways. Besides clothes, shoes and toys from a special Father's Closet, volunteers also called out donated "prizes" every half-hour, including bunk beds, a microwave, a TV, a VCR, living room furniture, restaurant gift certificates and even a car, a 1992 Saturn.
High Point Enterprise. The United Way of Greater High Point Volunteer Center mobilized 85 volunteers, including college students, church groups, neighborhood associations, individuals and families, to make a difference in tribute to 9/11 and promote Helping Is Healing through the Points of Light Foundation. Projects ranged from painting and landscaping to collecting and donating books, mattresses, clothing and food for the needy, including 570 hot dogs and hamburgers that went to the Open Door shelter.
(Jacksonville) Daily News. 50 community college students irrevocably changed the lives of 52 poor Jacksonville children starting Oct. 27. The students -- members of the Social Sciences and Criminal Justice clubs of Coastal Carolina Community College -- established an after-school mentoring program that gives kids a safe place to do homework. The children, most of whom spent a lot of time unsupervised after school, now can mingle with caring adults. "We're getting thank-you notes from parents, from teachers and from the kids," said student adviser Beth Barton. "We know we're making a difference."
(Kannapolis) Independent Tribune. The 10-member Rimer 4-H Club bought and delivered a truckload of children's books, clothes, games and toys to the children's Playroom at the Northeast Medical Center in Concord. Using a grant from the Lutheran Brotherhood and $200 they raised on their own, the members, ages 9 to 16, fulfilled a "wish list" compiled by the hospital.
(Kinston) Free Press. 10 volunteers from the Circle of Friends of Lenoir County donated and delivered furnishings to 4 HIV/AIDS patients living alone in sparse quarters. Circle members and their families provided everything from a refrigerator, beds, sofas and TVs to sheets, pots and pans, dishes and groceries. They moved 1 senior from a nursing home into a personal care home; another woman, recently released from a psychiatric hospital, was moved into a public housing unit Circle members outfitted for her, including knickknacks.
(Lenoir) News-Topic. Led by GEAR UP N.C. Caldwell County, 500 students at Gamewell and Granite Falls middle schools and Dudley Shoals Elementary made and sent letters and cards to troops overseas. Cards also went to firefighters, police officers and other 9/11 rescue workers.
(Lumberton) Robesonian. The 500-member student body of Tanglewood Elementary adopted 95 nursing home residents in a "Hands Across Time" project that assigned up to 5 residents to each school classroom. Before Make A Difference Day, students collected gifts for their adopted residents, including toiletries, snacks, stuffed animals, socks and other small items. They then decorated shoeboxes, stuffed them with goodies and made cards for each resident by name. 70 students delivered the care boxes Oct. 27.
(Monroe) Enquirer-Journal. 350 Unionville Elementary School students, staff members, parents and friends collected 1,200 items -- enough for 125 Comfort Kits -- for homeless and temporarily displaced people. After students had counted and sorted donations, 40 volunteers assembled them Oct. 27 and delivered the kits and all leftovers to the Red Cross.
(Morganton) News Herald. 30 Grace Hospital Guild volunteers and their families provided a day of fun and fellowship for 120 residents of Grace Heights Nursing Home. In addition to bingo, treat bags and craft activities (including "herb dolls" and pine cone bird feeders), volunteers brought a petting zoo for residents.
(Roanoke Rapids) Sunday Herald. To comfort a classmate with brain cancer, 21 kindergartners in Jan Wicker's class at Weldon Elementary raised $600 in a month, and some spent Oct. 27 buying her gifts. Trania McFadden -- who has undergone 2 surgeries, missed school from September through March and is big beyond her years because of steroid treatments -- was tickled to receive new clothes, educational electronic games, Clifford books, stuffed animals and a tape recorder. Her peers also created a video in which they acted out storybook skits, and her teacher made an activity scrapbook/workbook so the girl wouldn't feel she'd missed too much.
Salisbury Post. In China Grove, 15 members of the Horse Protection Society of North Carolina hosted a day of fun with horses at its Rocking Horse Ranch sanctuary for 23 Rowan County children in foster care. Making a connection between children and horses in "foster care," volunteers took their guests, ages 1 to 15, for rides while wearing cowboy and cowgirl hats and accessories. The visitors also ate lunch and decorated T-shirts with horse stencils.
Sanford Herald. 10 "Apples" Crime Watch Youths of the Apple Tree Apartments collected canned goods and 30 books for their community center to help neighbors in need. The youths, ages 6 to 12, canvassed other residents for donations.
(Shelby) Star. Mobilized by the United Way in Cleveland County, 700 volunteers collected 1,695 books and 3,674 food items for those in need in a countywide Make A Difference Day "Read & Feed Cleveland County!" effort. Volunteers also read to children at a library, apartment complex, community center and 2 churches. In a literacy training push, 14 people signed up to teach others to read. Other county projects that day included collecting household and personal-care items for senior citizens and shelter residents and holding a women's health symposium at Cleveland Community College.
Wilson Daily Times. 8th-grader Anna Johnson and 35 family members, friends and Forest Hills Baptist Church volunteers created a day of cystic fibrosis awareness at the church to educate 150 members of the community about the disease, which both Anna and her 9-year-old brother, Michael, have. Donations of $5,000 were collected for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. A Magic Schoolbus-themed adventure class, complete with Ms. Frizzle, toured Anna's "lungs" and learned how to thwart deadly bacteria. Carnival games with a cystic fibrosis theme and a "Kiss Your Baby" photo contest also were held.
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North Dakota
Newspaper Awards
(Wilmington) Bismarck Tribune. In a Pizza Hut Book It! effort dubbed "Backpacks of Love," 28 Cathedral School 3rd-graders staged a read-athon to earn points toward a donation of school supplies to children living at the Abused Adult Resource Center. The kids wrote letters to merchants asking for donated backpacks, pencils, gel pens, etc., and read nightly for 21Ž2 weeks -- a total of 247 hours of reading.
Grand Forks Herald. To benefit the educational needs of the 3 children of a former North Dakotan killed on 9/11, 50 Hatton Prairie Roses women, ages 18 to 50, raised $2,000 in a community rummage sale. Robert Rasmussen grew up in North Dakota and worked in Chicago, but he was on the 78th floor of one of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11. Items donated for sale included truckloads of furniture, antiques and a computer workstation; prices ranged from 50 cents to $20. Rasmussen's brother and sister-in-law drove on icy roads from West Fargo to attend.
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Ohio
National Award
State of Ohio. If 37,753 volunteers in 139 communities and 73 counties helped 413,166 other people in 396 projects on 1 day, what state are you in? The amazing state of Ohio. For the second year, the Ohio Community Service Council, the office of first lady Hope Taft, and a 40-person steering committee led a statewide Make A Difference Day effort. Taft and the steering committee fanned out to Cleveland, where they worked on three Habitat for Humanity sites. Gov. Bob Taft joined do-gooder go-getter Gennifer Davis, 18, in her third high-impact effort. This year, she sold $5 yellow bows to symbolize hope for children affected by the attacks of Sept. 11. As she and Taft grilled burgers and chatted up the public outside a Portsmouth store, they raised $1,000 -- half went to Red Cross children's funds and half to President Bush's fund for Afghan children. "It was a simple thing," Davis says, "but it worked well." Exactly like Make A Difference Day. The $10,000 award, funded by Newman's Own, will help more people via VOLUNTEER OHIO.
Newspaper Awards
Ashtabula) Star Beacon. ( Ken and Debbi Covell, along with Debbi's 2 sisters, and 8 friends and co-workers, spent 2 weekends reaching out to needy or lonely neighbors. On Oct. 27, they took 7 residents of a Geneva nursing home to McDonald's for brunch, toured Lake Shore Park by car and helped them shop at a craft show. The next weekend, with help from the "Little Brother" whom the Covells mentor, they performed yardwork for an elderly woman and a disabled couple, cleaned gutters for a 93-year-old neighbor and helped remove dilapidated steps from a disabled woman's trailer.
Athens Messenger. A week before Make A Difference Day, 12 members of the Nabby Lee Ames Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Pomeroy, with help from 6 churches, started sewing 100 quilts for newborn and preemie babies. On Oct. 27, they delivered 10 to the pediatric unit of O'Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens and 5 to a Chillicothe veterans hospital to be used as lap robes.
Beavercreek News-Current. 100 volunteers from STARS (Seniors Teaching and Reaching Students), American Legion Post 776, Harvest Time Ministries and General Electric distributed food and a truckload of clothes to 500 needy families in Dayton. Baby beds and car seats also were given to low-income people raising grandchildren.
(Bucyrus) Telegraph-Forum. 15 members of the Jobs for Ohio Graduates club at Northmor High in Galion adopted 12 "grandparents" at an assisted living home in Frederickstown. After corresponding for a month, they started their visits Oct. 27.
(Canton) Repository. 7 members of The Tabitha Club at North Canton Church of Christ -- girls ages 6 to 11 -- enlisted the help of their church's Salteens youth group and congregation to collect enough coats and winter clothing for 100 needy children. On Oct. 27, 30 families lined up outside Gibbs Elementary, where many pupils come from low-income homes, before the planned giveaway began. All coats were snatched up in 20 minutes.
Chillicothe Gazette. A health fair -- sponsored by the Guardian Angel Community Health agency, the Ross County NAACP and the Chillicothe Fire Department -- gave 30 citizens in an underserved minority community 9-volt batteries, gift bags filled with trinkets such as cups, magnets and writing utensils, and information and screening for diabetes, hypertension, depression and AIDS. 10 smoke detectors were given away, and $50 was raised for the Make A Difference Day Scholarship Fund.
Cincinnati Enquirer. 358 energetic Trenton citizens spread 300 tons of donated sand and gravel to create an official-size community volleyball court; picked up litter along 15 miles of city streets; planted 150 mums; painted 135 storm well lids and 75 fire hydrants; added reflective tape to 500 fire hydrants; cleaned up flower beds for retirees; and cooked meals for 40 homeless people. A high school football team also raked yards for 30 elderly or disabled residents, and 3rd-graders visited shut-ins at a nursing home, giving them handmade Thanksgiving decorations and painting ladies' fingernails.
Columbus Dispatch. For her 7th Make A Difference Day effort, Emily Douglas, 20, collected $2,000 in school supplies and 12,000 pounds of books for 2,000 needy schoolchildren and 2 school libraries destroyed by floods in Appalachia. On Oct. 27, she boxed, stacked on skids, shrink-wrapped and weighed books she'd collected in caravans around Columbus before they were trucked away.
Coshocton Tribune. 7 members of VFW Mohawk Post 2040 Ladies Auxiliary cleaned the home of a disabled WWII veteran and his wife. They brought homemade cookies and turkey-noodle casserole, washed walls, mopped floors, deep-scrubbed appliances and the bathroom, laundered curtains, installed a new smoke detector, and winterized inside and out.
(Defiance) Crescent News. 800 Cub and Boy Scouts and their families from four counties -- representing the Black Swamp Area Council, Chinquapin District -- collected 60,000 cans to stock 24 food pantries.
Fairborn Daily Herald. 20 members of the National Honor Society of Catholic Central High School in Springfield dressed in Halloween costumes and canvassed a 5-mile area in 2 hours Oct. 27, treating the Second Harvest food bank -- which had been hit by lightning and burned down in August -- to 500 cans of food and other staples.
(Findlay) Courier. 14 Junior Girl Scouts from Troop 126 of Van Buren made 37 fleece lap quilts, 13 tied quilts, 20 "sun catcher" mobiles to place over beds as well as 54 window sun catchers for 133 residents at Fox Run Manor in Findlay. On Oct. 27, they delivered their gifts, plus 37 bingo prizes (scarves, cologne, homemade goodies, socks, slippers), and hosted a bingo party. They also donated a dozen bags of cleaning supplies, toothbrushes, coffee and filters, mixing bowls and baking dishes, 6 sheet sets, lotions, personal care items, 16 scarves and 10 blankets to Hope House, a shelter for women and children.
(Fostoria) Review Times. 40 members of American Legion Auxiliary Unit 183 in Pemberville collected and sold jewelry and scarves -- most tagged under $1 -- at a craft show, raising $250 for survivors of veterans who died on 9/11.
(Fremont) News-Messenger. 7-year-old Lindsay Darr collected 83 pounds of soda can pull tabs (that's more than she weighs!) and delivered them on her Berlin Flyer wagon to the Toledo Ronald McDonald House.
(Gallipolis) Sunday Times-Sentinel. All 670 pupils at Washington Elementary spent a week raising $2,140 for families of New York firefighters. Also donated: 250 pounds of dry dog food to an animal shelter, toiletries and school supplies to a home for abused women, as well as 525 used children's books to that home and a hospital pediatric ward. Students landscaped around town; 5th-graders picked up trash; 3rd-graders raised cash to replace a tree destroyed in a downtown fire.
(Greenville) Daily Advocate. 60 pupils, parents and staff from East Elementary collected 1,000 non-perishables in a 3-hour scavenger hunt to fill the Darke County food pantry, enough to feed 225 needy families. 1 elderly woman alone donated 6 bags of groceries. Many of the students are from low-income homes themselves.
(Hillsboro) Times-Gazette. 75 worshippers at Hillsboro First United Methodist Church divided into 22 teams and hung 9-volt batteries for fire detectors on the doorknobs of 2,500 homes.
Ironton Tribune. 60 volunteers -- including Bubbles the Clown, Smoky Bear, Briggs Lawrence County Public Library mascot Briggsy the dog, Mayor Robert Cleary and representatives from 20 agencies -- held a read-athon for 300 kids. Books were given to each child.
Lancaster Eagle-Gazette. 10 FCCLA students at Stanbery Freshman School cleaned inside and out at the Lighthouse, a domestic violence shelter. They raked, washed dishes, and cleaned windows, furniture, walls, appliances, bedding and clothes, making 1 apartment spotless for the next family to move in.
Lima News. 55 members of VFW Post 1275 and Auxiliary collected 125 coats and 42 sweaters, plus scarves, gloves and $100, for those served by the Daily Bread Food Kitchen. They also donated 176 cans and 28 boxes of food staples, plus $235, for the Veterans Food Pantry and participated in a trick-or-treat safety exhibition attended by 3,000 children.
(Lisbon) Morning Journal. 29 Columbiana County AmeriCorps volunteers sorted, counted and delivered to the Christina House, a Lisbon domestic violence shelter: 675 complete outfits, 36 pairs of socks, 27 pairs of panties, 7 slips, 24 bras, 17 wallets, 40 pairs of hosiery, 51 belts, 46 purses, 15 ladies' coats, 12 makeup brushes, 4 travel mirrors, and boxes of toiletries and makeup -- some donated by Brownie Troop 409 of Salem.
(Lorain) Morning Journal. 12 high school students from Southview Key Club spread 250 cubic feet of mulch around 20 new trees lining the driveway of Christ United Methodist Church, which houses a summer program for children with multiple disabilities. They also painted and cleaned a classroom used by disabled adults at Emmanuel United Methodist Church.
(Mansfield) News Journal. To control and comfort a growing stray animal population, 10 5th-graders and 2 teachers canvassed near Hedges Elementary School with 5 wagons for 5 hours, distributing donated straw, 100 pounds of pet food and treats, flea collars and information on low-cost spay and neuter programs to low-income residents who tend to 30 homeless animals.
Marietta Times. The Carver clan, feeling blessed after the Sept. 26 birth of a boy, threw a baby shower to benefit poor newborns and unwed mothers. Diapers, wipes, diaper bags and sleepers were donated to Woman's Care Center in Parkersburg, W.Va.
Marion Star. 4 clients from the Morrow County Juvenile and Probation Community Service Program and Substance Abuse Corps in Mount Gilead -- along with four community volunteers -- painted a long-neglected storage room at Morrow County Hospital.
(Martins Ferry) Times Leader. 15 Habitat for Humanity volunteers working on a house in Bellaire helped the next-door neighbor who had provided water, storage and labor to their crew for 10 weeks. 5 women cleaned inside and did touch-up painting on Homer Greathouse's Habitat home, while men and teenagers built a retaining wall and seeded the lawn.
(Massillon) Independent. 8 members of the Jackson Tri-M Music Honor Society, plus 10 Jackson High School band and choir members, performed for Alzheimer's patients, gave manicures and hosted rounds of bingo at Manor Care Nursing Center in North Canton.
(Newark) Advocate. In cold and drizzling rain, 15 Park National Bank associates spent 5 hours raking and removing leaves from the block-long courthouse square in downtown Newark.
Norwalk Reflector. In Oberlin, 7 VFW Ladies Auxiliary members from Thomas Mahalis Post 1079 manned a patriotic booth during a 4-H craft show. They distributed 100 flag etiquette books and Pledge of Allegiance cards, as well as safety tips for Halloween, reflective tape to be used by trick-or-treaters, streamers in patriotic colors for bicycles and information on bicycle safety.
Piqua Daily Call. 800-plus members of American Legion Post 184 pitched in with 180 non-perishables and 3 bags of children's clothes for the Bethany Center food pantry and thrift shop.
(Ravenna) Record-Courier. In a project dubbed "Habitat Due to Inhumanity," Rachel Salzer, 17, of Rootstown enlisted 7 others to help spruce up the 10-acre Happy Trails Farm Animal Sanctuary. A makeshift stall for 2 elderly horses was under 2 feet of water and muck, so they bailed and pitch-forked the area clean, loading up trailers full of debris, and applied a dry wood-chip-and-straw floor. They also customized a stall for a disabled retired racing horse, transformed a garage into a home for potbelly pigs, and upgraded the nesting and resting areas for the fowl, dogs and rabbits.
Sandusky Register. 15 adults and teens from St. John United Church of Christ in Milan collected enough soap, razors, deodorant, combs, shampoo and other toiletry items to create 100 care kits for Ohioans coping with fire or flood emergencies.
Sidney Daily News. 50 volunteers -- including Girl Scouts and mentally disabled adults -- planted 300 daffodil bulbs in Tawawa Park and decorated 25 flower pots as gifts for nursing home residents.
(Steubenville) Herald Star. For the 2nd year, the Follansbee, W.Va., Chamber of Commerce rallied more than 100 volunteers from the civic league, Lions Club, 20th Century Woman's Club, Brooke County Rotary Club, Knights of Columbus Council 11919 and Girl Scout troops 3076 and 4902. They collected 5,000 canned goods plus 1,000 used eyeglasses and $500.
(Tiffin) Advertiser-Tribune. 5 volunteers for Seneca Habitat for Humanity repaired and winterized the Bascom home of Cynthia Miller, disabled with scleroderma and rheumatoid arthritis. They cleaned spouts, replaced cable lines, made electrical repairs, removed old carpet, rearranged furniture and took their new friend out to lunch. 12 others worked on 2 homes under construction in Tiffin.
(Troy) Miami Valley Sunday News. 54 Cincinnati Eye Institute co-workers and their families -- including Cindy Ryman and Kelly Boyd of Troy -- cleaned classrooms, landscaped and did odd jobs for St. Rita's School for the Deaf in Cincinnati, which serves 135 students.
(Warren) Tribune Chronicle. 12 members of Knights of Columbus Council 11646 of Cortland assembled double bunk beds and dressers for a shelter for abused spouses -- the only such shelter in Trumbull County.
(Washington Court House) Record Herald. 7 members of St. Colman of Cloyne Catholic Church's Social Concerns Committee collected 76 jars of peanut butter, 100 other non-perishables and $14 for a Fayette County food pantry.
(Willoughby) News-Herald. The Old Wood Flowers Foundation tapped 13 senior organizations in Lake County -- 250 volunteers in all -- to donate, sort and deliver hundreds of boxes of supplies loaded in 1 moving van and 6 cars to 5 agencies: the Forbes House for battered families; Birthright and Open Door, for needy mothers and pregnant women; and Project Hope and New Directions for Living, which serve the homeless.
Wilmington News Journal. 4 Wilmington College honors students raked leaves for 4 residents and raised $100 for the Make A Difference Day Scholarship Fund.
(Wooster) Daily Record. 20 members of the Spink Inc. Neighborhood Coalition helped an elderly couple and their disabled grandson with home maintenance. They removed 4 300-pound bushes, weeded, cut down and hauled away 2 trees, put up a chain-link fence, painted, cleaned, and removed 4 truckloads of trash and debris.
Xenia Daily Gazette. 27 Greene County volunteers, ages 6 to 55, painted long-neglected classrooms used by the county recreation, parks and cultural arts department and removed litter and limbs at Xenia Station, the hub of trails for biking, hiking and roller-blading used by 180,000 people a year.
(Zanesville) Times Recorder. Students from 5 high schools planted barberry shrubs donated by Muskingum Behavioral Health, picked up trash and created 100 gift bags -- filled with toiletries, makeup, crayons, books and yarn -- for residents of a Muskingum County home for senior citizens.
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Oklahoma
Encore Award
Muldrow. Teenager Kyle Alderson earned a national award for creating READ (Reading Encourages All Dreams), a library-based teens-tutoring-kids project, in 2000. Oct. 27, 31 more high school mentors -- for a total of 42 -- were matched with underprivileged or struggling first- through fourth-graders. The teens not only aim for academic excellence, they deal with sensitive subjects in the kids' lives, from peer pressure to family troubles. Says Kyle, 16: "It is an awesome responsibility ... it's also one of the most rewarding experiences anyone can have." That day, Kyle also launched an original puppet show called "Saving Timmy" that he takes on tour to raise awareness of school bus safety. The $2,500 award, funded by the Gannett Foundation, benefits Eastern Sequoyah Co. Oklahoma Friends of the Muldrow Library.
Newspaper Awards
(Ardmore) Daily Ardmoreite. 38 students from Ardmore Middle School Peer Assistance Leadership classes collected 300 new and used books for underprivileged kids. They gave away books Oct. 27 in conjunction with the Safe Kids Coalition's car seat inspection; as the 75 kids were removed from their car seats, they were treated to an age-appropriate book. Leftovers were given to the non-profit Gloria Ainsworth day care center and the HFV Wilson Community Center, in a low-income neighborhood.
(Bartlesville) Examiner-Enterprise. Bartlesville Area Friends of the Parks roused 11 volunteers to paint 2 basketball backboards and poles, a slide and swing set, a water fountain and legs of a picnic table in William R. Smith Park, serving 500 neighbors. They also cut down 2 dead trees, pruned and trimmed other trees and bushes, and removed poison ivy, weeds and overgrowth from the fence line.
Enid News & Eagle. 300 DeWitt Waller Junior High School students collected 300 bears, attaching notes of love, for the students of P.S. 97 in New York City. Postage was donated by an insurance agency.
(Lawton) Sunday Constitution. 75 low-income residents (typical annual income: $3,899) donated their time, at least 1 can of food and a bag of candy each for clients of C. Carter Crane Homeless Shelter and New Directions battered women's shelter. They also bundled 25 crates of newspapers and 200 magazines for recycling. Some made other donations, such as socks and cash, and the food donations kept coming through Christmas.
McAlester News-Capital & Democrat. 40 McAlester Lions Club members raised $3,500 at their Oct. 27 fall festival to buy a video magnification system for the public library, to ease reading for the visually disabled.
Muskogee Daily Phoenix. 24 4-H'ers from Central School in rural Sallisaw, along with the Oklahoma Farm Bureau and firefighters, escorted 130 adults and children through a fire-safety exhibition trailer and gave away 8 fire extinguishers procured through fund-raising.
Norman Transcript. 75 women from 6 McClain County Home Community Education clubs spent 8 months making 66 bed covers for the 50-patient Alzheimer's unit at the Veterans Center in Norman. Using 275 yards of fabric and 132 yards of batting, they personalized each quilt -- depicting hunting scenes, Native American designs, Army insignia or sports logos -- and delivered them Oct. 27 with 90 batches of homemade cookies for staffers, patients and families.
Shawnee News-Star. Betsy Chavez's 35 5th-graders at Will Rogers Elementary -- with the help of businesses -- collected 1,700 used books, cleaned and repaired them, and packaged them 5 at a time into gift bags, along with homemade bookmarks and get-well cards for children at 2 hospitals. The effort, "Read to Your Bunny," was done in conjunction with Pizza Hut's Book It! program.
(Stillwater) News Press. For the 3rd year, the Stillwater High School Spanish Club assisted the disabled. 50 students, ages 16 to 18, painted, raked leaves and did other odd jobs for 45 mentally handicapped neighbors.
Tulsa World. Kathleen Lee, 55, whose family has been boosted by volunteer agencies in the past, began a 1-woman payback campaign to raise awareness and funds for 14 Tulsa charities. She donated piggy banks for children of clients at a credit counseling agency, jeans and magazine subscriptions to a girls' home, a computer for a library literacy program, reference books to a support group for women, and books, stuffed toys and clothes for an abused children's shelter.
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Oregon
Newspaper Awards
(Albany) Mid-Valley Sunday. 45 Oregon State University students, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other community volunteers worked on 6 Habitat for Humanity homes. 1 house was framed, 2 got foundations and 2 others had interior work. 1 needy family will have indoor plumbing for the 1st time; another elderly wheelchair-bound woman never again will have to crawl from her car to her home.
(Coos Bay) World. Missions in Health clinic, which serves low-income citizens, gave free evaluations and treated 9 people for ear, nose and throat problems. 1 child was referred for minor surgery to be performed at no cost. Among the 17 volunteers: an 83-year-old survivor of 4 bouts with cancer who served refreshments, a cattle farmer who drove 50 miles each way to participate, and youth who helped supervise the younger children.
(Salem) Statesman Journal. The Wilkens family, with help from 115 Brownies, Girl Scouts and 4-H'ers, delivered decorated pumpkins and cards to patients and staffers at 4 hospitals, to honor a relative who had died after battling 7 cancers in 11 years and to thank the caregivers. They worked all month to pick, wash and paint the pumpkins and design cards. A farmer has volunteered to grow pumpkins for them next year.
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Pennsylvania
Newspaper Awards
Altoona Mirror. 75 5th-graders at Claysburg-Kimmel Elementary crafted bookmarks touting the importance of reading and delivered them to the public library.
Beaver County/Allegheny Times. Volunteers led by Judy Harrison raked leaves, trimmed hedges and performed other yard chores for 10 Ambridge senior citizens. Helpers included Harrison's family and friends and a handful of out-of-towners who had discovered the project on the online Make A Difference DAYtaBANK.
(Bloomsburg) Press Enterprise. Expanding their annual Christmas project for needy and sick children, members of the Berwick chapter of UNICO, an Italian-American service organization, delivered dolls, games, school supplies and other gifts to 204 children at 3 Danville sites: the Danville Child Development Center, the Janet Weis Children's Hospital and the Ronald McDonald House. They also visited the home of a 5-year-old girl who has a brain tumor, leaving gifts for her and her family.
Bradford Era. 8 student groups and 4 administrative offices at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford hosted a Halloween party for 28 kids, ages 11Ž2 to 10. The children, many of them clients of social service agencies, decorated pumpkins and cookies, met the Pitt Panther, walked a haunted hallway and listened to scary stories. Campus police offered tips on safe trick-or-treating.
Butler Eagle. Barbara Stacklin and Diane Alberti sold homemade dog biscuits, cat toys, crocheted slippers, seasonal decor and other crafts, raising $979 for the Animal Partners of Butler County. The money was enough to spay or neuter 80 animals.
(Carlisle) Sentinel. With help from 50 volunteers, Mount Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church in Churchtown raised $600 for 9/11 relief at a ham supper. And church youth delivered meals to 8 homebound church members.
(Chambersburg) Public Opinion. In the 3rd effort by Healthy Communities Partnership, 1,400 volunteers from 19 Franklin County groups fixed up playgrounds; collected food, supplies and funds for agencies serving the needy; distributed free clothing; did cleanups; and entertained hospital patients and nursing home residents. Volunteers included 3-year-old Head Start kids, middle and high school students, church groups and businesses.
(Clearfield) Progress. 7th- and 8th-graders at St. Francis School organized a yard and bake sale to benefit a former school parent who was seriously injured by a falling tree limb on a camping trip. The $1,100 they collected will help defray medical and travel expenses.
(Easton) Express-Times. 385 senior citizens from Warren County, N.J., nutrition sites, senior centers and clubs collected non-perishable food for 3 weeks, culminating in the delivery of 600 pounds to the county food bank Oct. 27. 13 Retired and Senior Volunteer Program members sorted and packaged those and other items for holiday delivery to 861 families.
(Greensburg) Tribune-Review. As an outgrowth of its work serving meals to Pittsburgh's homeless, members of Christian Life Church in Trafford delivered 200 washcloth packets containing soap, shampoo, a disposable razor, toothpaste, toothbrush, comb and adhesive bandages to the Light of Life Ministries in Pittsburgh. 50 members helped package and deliver the items.
(Hanover) Evening Sun. To show appreciation for emergency workers, caterer Pamela Brown of Spring Grove raised $1,931 selling 537 bag lunches at businesses and factories in Hanover, New Oxford and Gettysburg. Proceeds went to emergency training centers in York and Adams counties and to the Mid-Atlantic DOGS search and rescue team. Oct. 22-27 Brown took orders for the lunches -- a sandwich or bowl of her prize-winning chili, pretzels and a cookie -- then delivered the food Nov. 2 in white bags decorated with patriotic themes by schoolchildren.
(Hazleton) Standard-Speaker. The Wednesday Painters (10 non-professional artists who paint together on Wednesdays) organized a silent art auction for the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army to benefit 9/11 families. 84 items were sold, netting $3,623.
Indiana Gazette. 44 volunteers helped 2 projects organized by the Indiana County Volunteer Center: Girl Scout Troop 808 and sorority Gamma Sigma Sigma sorted clothes and other items at a warehouse that serves the needy and homeless; Indiana Senior High School Key Club and AARP members raked leaves and did yard chores at the homes of 20 senior citizens.
(Lansdale) Reporter. 275 students, parents and staff spent the morning in the Corpus Christi School gym making 2,414 sandwiches for a food pantry, writing notes to 150 nursing home residents, stuffing 525 cardboard tubes with candy and wrapping them in Halloween napkins for delivery to orphans, and putting together 1,000 breakfast bundles -- a cup of cereal, sugar packets, bottled orange juice, tea bag and napkin -- for a nursing home. All items were donated by students, who also collected 2,750 pounds of non-perishables, as well as 70 pounds of pull tabs and 400 pairs of sneakers to be recycled as playground covering.
Lebanon Daily News. In an annual effort that started with the school's gifted students and has grown to include the student council, peer counselors and the Medical Careers Club, 79 Palmyra High School students, staff and parents traveled to the Hershey Medical Center to deliver books to the pediatric unit and decorate the maternity wing, collected $30 for the Lebanon County United Way, raked leaves at the Ronald McDonald House in Hershey, tested water in Swatara Creek, cleaned up a particularly dirty section of the school's Adopt-A-Highway road and visited a nursing home.
(Lewistown) Sentinel. 3 Mount Union parks got much-needed cleanups and equipment repairs, thanks to volunteers coordinated by the Mount Union Community Action Partnership. In addition to residents concerned about the safety of aging play equipment, volunteers included members of the Juniata College men's basketball team, Habitat for Humanity and juvenile probationers.
(McKeesport) Daily News. 23 members of Holy Virgin Dormition Russian Orthodox Church packed 72 boxes of clothing, food, medicine and toys for delivery to Orthodox churches in Moldova and Ukraine, the result of a month-long drive. 52 extra boxes were packed 2 weeks later when more packing boxes arrived, and a Moscow orphanage was added to the list of recipients. Church members raised $1,632 to ship 3,628 pounds of goods.
(Norristown) Times Herald. Inspired by friends who had traveled to Guatemala and Africa to provide eye care to the needy, Cathy Fitzsimmons organized free eye exams for 8 women and 4 children, most of them affiliated with Hannah House, a Philadelphia program for ex-inmates recovering from addictions. The exams, by 2 Jenkintown optometrists, turned up glaucoma in 2 women. 1 person received glasses and follow-up care for serious problems and several got lens prescriptions.
(Phoenixville) Phoenix. 75 volunteers, directed to the project by the Chester County United Way, readied the St. John's United Church of Christ organic community garden for the growing season. Workers spread mulch, cleared brush, transplanted native plants, repaired fences, weeded the herb garden and sowed wildflower seeds.
(Pottstown) Mercury. For the 8th year, 300 Pottstown High students and families raked leaves for 35 senior citizens, cleaned downtown, cleared along a riverbank and spruced up parks.
Pottsville Republican & Evening Herald. Junior Girl Scout Troop 98 of Orwigsburg adopted a Habitat for Humanity family of 5 scheduled to move into their new Pottsville home Oct. 27. 3 girls representing the 21 Scouts delivered household items packaged in 2 large wicker baskets to the family. The troop plans to continue to help them.
(Primos) Delaware County Sunday Times. 150 volunteers transformed a barren area in Ridley Park into a memorial garden dedicated to 9/11 victims. Volunteers -- members of sororities at Drexel and Temple universities, a teen service club, the Ridley Park Athletic Club and Ridley Park residents -- laid 6,000 bricks around red, white and blue flowers and a new flagpole.
(Sharon) Herald. 100 Shenango Valley volunteers collected, repaired and cleaned used medical equipment; painted rooms at a literacy center and a shelter; sorted eyeglasses for recycling; cleaned wheelchairs for a nursing home; and helped renovate a century-old hotel, home of the Grove City Area Historical Society. The effort was coordinated by the Volunteer Service Division of the United Way agencies in Mercer County and Grove City.
(Somerset) Daily American. An unexpected snowstorm changed plans in Salisbury, a community of 716 on Mount Davis, the state's highest point. Rather than seal wooden playground equipment at Salisbury-Elk Lick Elementary School, 23 volunteers painted 3 classrooms at Salisbury-Elk Lick High. Helpers included parents and grandparents from the elementary school and high school alumni contacted at the last minute.
(Tarentum) Valley News Dispatch. 45 girls and adults from the Keystone Tall Tree Girl Scout Council, Trillium Unit, assembled 51 food packages for Meals on Wheels clients to use during emergencies and 102 personal hygiene kits for mental health patients and residents of a home for troubled youth. Items for the kits, valued at $1,500, were collected by 175 Scouts, ages 6 to 17, beginning Sept. 17. $32 in leftover funds was donated to America's Fund for Afghan Children.
(Warren) Times Observer. Despite rain and snow, 34 volunteers -- including 15 members of Boy Scout Pack 10 earning their conservation patch -- spruced up Lacy Park. They planted shrubs, gathered trash and cleaned the ball field.
(Washington) Observer-Reporter. The Slovene National Benefit Society, a fraternal insurance organization headquartered in Imperial, raised $2,900 for the Make A Difference Day Scholarship Fund with a dance at their Enon Valley recreation center. 80% of the group's membership is concentrated in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and 280 people attended, including a busload from Cleveland.
(West Chester) Daily Local News. Combining its annual Days of Caring with Make A Difference Day for the 1st time, the United Way of Chester County put 660 volunteers on 75 projects over 3 days. On Oct. 27, 207 volunteers gardened, painted, cleaned, built and hosted children's parties, carnivals and fund-raisers throughout the county; there were 17 major efforts in all that day.
(Wilkes-Barre) Citizens' Voice. People began lining up 45 minutes early for free dental care at a wellness fair sponsored by Volunteers of America of Pennsylvania and the Wyoming Valley chapter of the American Red Cross. 65 people received dental exams, X-rays and cleanings, courtesy of dental hygiene students and faculty from Luzerne County Community College and 2 dentists. 200 people attended the event, which also featured flu shots, hearing exams, blood pressure checks, child car seat inspections and health information booths.
York Sunday News. For their 1st Make A Difference Day, members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 229 collected $100 and 500 items for the York County Food Bank, as well as 29 boxes and bags of clothing, blankets and toiletries for Helping Hands for the Homeless.
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Rhode Island
Newspaper Awards
Newport Daily News. 10 senior women from the South Kingstown Center for Senior Services pieced together 25 totes for the wheelchairs and walkers of old and disabled people. The colorful bags, used to carry necessities and personalize equipment, were donated to hospitals and nursing homes.
(West Warwick) Kent County Daily Times. 24 Winman Junior High students and 2 adults spent 11Ž2 hours removing bottles, styrofoam cups and other trash from the beach at Goddard Memorial State Park. The students collected 10 leaf bags full of garbage.
Westerly Sun. 25 Girl Scouts from Westerly and Pawcatuck solicited donations of toiletries from customers at stores and pharmacies. They collected 1,200 items, mainly toiletries that can't be bought with food stamps, and gave them to the Living Supply Closet at Christ Church in Westerly.
(Woonsocket) Call. 35 residents of the Wyndemere Woods Independent/Assisted Living facility brought the needy to them, spending a special day with women and children from a homeless shelter. The seniors, assisted by Girl Scout Troop 520 and service clubs, collected clothes, toys, stuffed animals and toiletries. They spent 5 hours with their guests, making crafts, eating lunch, and staging a scavenger hunt and a puppet show.
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South Carolina
Newspaper Awards
Aiken Standard. Before Make A Difference Day, East Aiken Elementary's 680 students collected donations for a garage sale in the school gym to help children on the Cherokee Native American Reservation in Cherokee, N.C. On Oct. 27, 50 volunteers of all ages -- students, teachers, parents and community volunteers -- manned the sale, which also included donated baked goods. 25 4th- and 5th-graders washed cars at 2 locations. They raised $1,505; proceeds bought Christmas presents and school supplies for Cherokee children, including those living in a reservation home for the abandoned or orphaned.
Beaufort Gazette. 70 Thumbs Up volunteers, including 15 children in the enrichment program that helps children of parents with a disability, filled and decorated 110 shoeboxes for abused children. Intergenerational volunteers from 5 organizations, including churches and school clubs, plus retired U.S. military officers, collected donations of toiletries, candy and small stuffed animals, which were packed into the boxes. 25 more care boxes were made and given to a church relief group to be sent overseas to children in impoverished or war-torn countries.
(Florence) Morning News. 400 students, teachers and parents at the Byrnes Schools collected 60 boxes of supplies for homeless women and children sheltered at the House of Hope. In October the school's 350 students in grades K-12 collected food, baby items, bedding, toys, diapers, toiletries and 50 stuffed animals, then counted, sorted and boxed them. Volunteers, including 4 students, delivered the needed items to the shelter Oct. 27.
Greenville News. 140 students, staff and alumni from Lander University in Greenwood -- the largest single volunteer contingent in the 13-year history of the Greenwood Area Habitat for Humanity -- built sheds, laid flooring, painted walls, cleared land and planted gardens at 5 sites. Volunteers included university maintenance workers, members of science clubs, sororities, Presidential Ambassadors, university president Dan Ball and 2 alumni who drove from North Carolina to participate after receiving an e-mail about the project.
(Hilton Head) Island Packet. 30 members of the island's Fire and Rescue corps and Rotary Club bought and donated 200 safety helmets to children ages 12 and under in a "Help Prevent Head Injuries" effort. The volunteers gathered names of poor children who needed safety helmets by canvassing the Boys and Girls Club, Island Recreation and other organizations while conducting Fire and Rescue public education programs there. Volunteers also collected 200 children's books and 25 stuffed animals at all 6 island firehouses and the senior citizens' center to give to agencies promoting literacy and serving children and the sick.
(Rock Hill) Herald. At Sunset Park Elementary, 45 children, teachers, parents and volunteers from the community and businesses began work on a school garden. Working with donated supplies and their own shovels, they dug, planted, weeded and laid pine needles. The garden has 3 large perennial flower beds flanked by crape myrtle trees. A butterfly bush grows in the center of each bed, inspiring the garden's name, "Waiting for Wings."
Washington Daily News. 22 kindergartners in Sharon Cherry's class at Pines Elementary School in Plymouth set up children's libraries at Plumblee Nursing Center and Washington County Hospital, in conjunction with Pizza Hut's Book It! challenge. On Oct. 27, they divided 175 donated books between the sites, hoping to keep child visitors entertained there, and also spent time chatting with and reading to nursing home residents and patients.
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South Dakota
Newspaper Awards
(Aberdeen) American News. 45 nursing students helped 106 children and family members at a health fair. Participants learned about safety and health, toured an ambulance, and received health screenings and free immunizations.
(Sioux Falls) Argus Leader. 250 residents, students and church members gave 742 pairs of mittens and hats to Lutheran Social Services Refugee programs. 100 warm woolens were distributed to 50 kids and their families; the rest will be given to new refugees as they arrive from Russia, Yugoslavia, Sudan and elsewhere.
Yankton Daily Press and Dakotan. 150 residents continued the town's commitment to Make A Difference Day. Highlights: 10 people handed out coats, shoes and clothing collected by elementary school students and a podiatrist; 32 Boy Scouts gathered 5,000 pounds of canned goods for a food pantry; 26 Mount Marty College students painted a women's shelter; and Habitat for Humanity builders and prison inmates completed a house for a family.
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Tennessee
Newspaper Awards
(Athens) Daily Post-Athenian. Decatur Jaycees president Angela Brown noticed upon exiting the Meigs Decatur Public Library driveway that she couldn't see past overgrowth to check traffic. Librarian Carolyn Jones repeatedly had requested help from the city with out-of-control weeds in the back lot, which had become an eyesore. So 12 Jaycees, including kids, used weed eaters, lawn mowers and countless lawn bags to haul off 2 truckloads of brush, sticks, garbage and metal junk. They also re-landscaped and plan to re-stripe parking spaces this spring.
(Clarksville) Leaf-Chronicle. 900 Sango Elementary K-5 students spent a month collecting enough personal-care items, toys and Arby's coupons to fill 307 gift-wrapped shoe boxes for children living in 2 Clarksville projects. They also wrote notes of encouragement to 400 firefighters and police officers in Clarksville and Montgomery counties, enclosing more Arby's coupons. The school's Recycle Team spent the day at Sango Convenience Center helping residents unload recyclables from their vehicles.
Cleveland Daily Banner. Tasia Bikas, Meryland Nagel and Alice Baker, friends who have adopted the "rough" 1000 block of Poplar Street, cleaned the yards of leaves and debris and helped assure widows living there they were safe. They also treated residents of Fitzgerald Village, a cluster of 8 Habitat for Humanity homes, to a "Get Acquainted" block party. Another friend, Stacy Flemister, donated a piece of property along that street for the women and the Cleveland Garden Club to till.
Jackson Sun. 8 handy men and women from North Jackson Baptist and First Presbyterian churches put finishing touches on a rebuilt mobile home in Mercer for Bertha Hill, a waitress struck twice by tragedy: In January 1999, a tornado destroyed her 1-room trailer, leaving her and 2 sons temporarily living in a barn. Then last year, she moved in with her daughter, whose 5-year-old son accidentally shot and killed Hill's 13-year-old son. In all, 30 people from 5 churches helped her find her way home again that day.
Kingsport Times News. 51 volunteers stepped up from Northeast Tennessee Mountain Bike Association, Appalachia CARES/AmeriCorps, Friends of Steele Creek Nature Center and Park and the city of Bristol to build an 89-foot-long footbridge along a badly eroded but popular trail in Bristol's Steele Creek Park. Volunteers worked through wintry weather using 12 utility posts, 1,920 pounds of concrete, 120 feet of 2-by-12's, 189 deck boards, 370 rail pickets and 100 pounds of nails. The effort spanned 3 Saturdays.
(Maryville) Daily Times. 3 teen girls living at Blount County Children's Home, 2 staff members and 2 women from the community joined to clean, from top to bottom, the apartment of John Akins, an elderly Maryville resident.
(Nashville) Tennessean. For her 11th birthday, Elizabeth Clark's big wish was to help kids affected by 9/11 to heal. Rather than have a party, she invited 10 friends over to help her assemble "Hug Packets" for 14 grieving New York children. Included in each were items she solicited from businesses or made herself: a photo frame for a picture of their lost loved one, 3 giant homemade brownies, decorated stationery, stamped envelopes, a homemade wooden heart-flag pin, postcards of Tennessee and a letter encouraging them to visit her in Nashville. Because Elizabeth was too young to give blood, she also made brownies for Red Cross workers.
(Oak Ridge) Oak Ridger. In Briceville, 62 doctors, dentists, lab technicians, nurses, dental hygienists, cooks and others staged Coal Creek Health Days, Oct. 26-27, for residents of Oak Ridge, where a third of the area's children live in poverty. $20,000 in dental and medical exams were given free, with 120 kids getting check-ups Saturday. Volunteers also cleaned and renewed the dormant Briceville People's Clinic.
(Sevierville) Mountain Press. 10 6th- through 8th-graders -- gifted and special needs students -- and 3 parent volunteers from Pi Beta Phi Elementary School in Gatlinburg assisted 2 scientists from Great Smoky Mountains National Park in collecting and sorting hundreds of insects and spiders for the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory. The aim of the 15-year research project is to identify every living species and discover ways to save lives using animal derivatives for medicines, natural pest controls and other useful products.
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Texas
Newspaper Awards
Amarillo Globe News. 22 members of the Altrusa club in Borger spent 300 volunteer hours crafting 20 keepsake books for underprivileged children. Volunteers presented the scrapbooks, containing the kids' photographs, handprints and homemade artwork, to the children and their parents at a picnic lunch.
Arlington Morning News. Our Kids Care founder Melissa Petry, a 14-year-old from Azle, wants to raise $25,000 for an addition to Mission House, a soup kitchen in desperate need of expansion. Petry and her group of 17 friends held a bake sale Oct. 27, raising $1,282.
Baytown Sun. Wanting to reach out to 9/11 victims and members of their own community, 200 Quest High School volunteers teamed up with Lowe's to sponsor a benefit fair Oct. 27. It had the usual array of games and carnival fun, including dunking booths, cake walks and ring toss. But the event emphasized personal and community safety and disaster planning. The Interact Club-sponsored festivities, when combined with Quest's outreach to other Humble school district bodies, raised $50,000 for Red Cross.
Bryan-College Station Eagle. Carlos Aguilar, a leukemia patient and student at Cypress Grove Intermediate School in College Station, missed most of the fall semester because his treatments required him to travel 90 miles to Houston 3 times a week. Classmate Ben Munster, 10, thought Carlos could use a new computer to help him keep up with his studies and e-mail his new friends, so he challenged fellow students to hold a soda-drinking, can-recycling drive. He and dozens of volunteers sold donated soda during 4 school lunches; they raised $1,005.93. But the Aguilars used the donation for a more immediate need: gas money.
(Clute) Facts. 10 Brazoria Catholic Daughters members raised 5 boxes of donated canned goods for the Helping Hands food pantry.
(Conroe) Courier. 75 bibliophiles, the Library Friends of Conroe, sponsored a book sale that netted $5,230 for the library system of Montgomery County.
Denton Record-Chronicle. Weeds, non-native trees and trash were winnowed from the 2,900-acre Clear Creek Natural Heritage Center by 312 University of North Texas students. Teamed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Denton Independent School District and Texas Women's University, volunteers removed 50 junipers, planted 500 oaks, picked up mounds of trash and erected 50 bird boxes to attract wood ducks.
El Paso Times. Sewing isn't a skill most young students have, but 150 Sageland MicroSociety Elementary School pupils pieced together a large Americana-themed quilt for Engine 28 and Ladder 11 of New York City Fire Department and 3 smaller quilts for children of firefighters who died 9/11. At their quilt-athon, the students also raised $700 for the Afghan children's fund.
Galveston County Daily News. Volunteers from VFW Post 8248 Ladies Auxiliary collected a crib, a toddler bed, books, children's clothes, toys and stuffed animals for the Crisis Pregnancy Support Center.
Greenville Herald Banner. Members of the Lions Club, Kiwanis, Rotary and the Greenville Police Department teamed up with church volunteers, high school clubs and residents to paint 7 homes in Greenville. The 155 participants also touched up city street signs and a historic weigh station downtown.
Killeen Daily Herald. 35 volunteers -- mostly foster children from the Child Placement Center's Foster Youth Program -- collected, cleaned and distributed 1,700 pairs of shoes to 6 organizations in Killeen, including the Salvation Army, area shelters and churches.
Laredo Morning Times. 630 Leon Daiches Elementary School pupils jumped at the chance to raise money for the Red Cross relief fund. They skipped rope from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., generating more than $3,500.
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. After raising $1,000 for Red Cross disaster relief before Make A Difference Day, the Lubbock Monterey AMBUCS focused on another need Oct. 27: 10 volunteers organized a blood drive that netted 25 pints of liquid life for the Red Cross.
Midland Reporter-Telegram. 18 staff members and volunteers from Hospice of Midland collected paintings, prints and pictures and hung them at nursing homes. They scoured garage sales and attics for the collection before Make A Difference Day and, on Oct. 27, let nursing home residents decide which they wanted in their rooms. One wall hanging required the efforts of 4 volunteers.
Orange Leader. After collecting boxes of shampoo, deodorant, detergent, soap, cleaning supplies, $125 worth of blankets and $100 in cash, 6 VFW and Ladies Auxiliary volunteers from Post 2775 sent the stockpile to Friends Helping Friends, an organization that provides vocational training for welfare recipients.
Plainview Daily Herald. Maudine Miller's 8th annual Make A Difference Day yard sale raised $1,600 for an orphan in India who needs medical care. In addition, the 78-year-old helped her 3 granddaughters set up a drink stand at the yard sale that earned $25 for President Bush's Afghan children's fund.
Plano Star Courier. Galvanized by what they read about Make A Difference Day online at usaweekend.com, 3,800 volunteers from the Hurst-Euless-Bedford Independent School District organized a community-wide book swap and literacy event. They collected and distributed 24,060 books and raised $500.14 for the Make A Difference Day Scholarship Fund.
Port Arthur News. 45 Future Teachers of America from Lincoln High School smartened the run-down homes of 2 elderly Port Arthur ladies with gallons of white and green paint.
(Sherman) Herald Democrat. Renovations at Camp Rio Roxo in Gordonville left the Camp Fire recreation area beautiful, yet incomplete. For Make A Difference Day, 145 Camp Fire USA Texoma Council volunteers planted pampas grass, nandina shrubs and pansies.
Texarkana Gazette. Longview's Partners in Prevention project was the liniment needed to help 9 seniors improve their living conditions. 200 volunteers replaced rotting wood, and sanded, scraped and painted 8 crumbling houses. Volunteers also replaced a roof, installed window seals, raked leaves, trimmed bushes and cleaned yards at the homes.
Texas City Sun. Dickinson High students, community volunteers, teachers and civic organizers -- 200 helpers in all -- installed 300 smoke detectors in 156 homes of needy residents.
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Utah
Newspaper Awards
(Ogden) Standard-Examiner. 350 Clearfield Job Corps members took on 11 projects. They put their vocational skills to good use, building a children's amphitheater, installing floors, planting 500 cottonwoods, painting 8 rooms at a domestic violence shelter and making 7 sets of bunk beds. They also did their part for 9/11 relief, giving 90 pints of blood and raising $2,500 by selling T-shirts for the Red Cross.
(Provo) Daily Herald. 35 Neighborhood Housing Services volunteers shed light on Provo's safety issues by passing out 1,300 light bulbs to 506 households. The group stressed that "leaving a light on" helps deter criminals. To celebrate the effort, residents were asked to flip on outdoor lights at 8 p.m. Oct. 27. "They did it," said organizer Kena Jo Mathews. "It was kind of cool."
(St. George) Spectrum. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Washington Elementary's Make A Difference Day plans took on greater significance for the kids and residents of Washington. 4th- and 5th-graders raised funds to buy flags and markers for veterans in the town cemetery. On Oct. 27, the children cleaned headstones and installed flags and markers at graves dating back to the Civil War. They also held a ceremony for the town's living veterans.
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Vermont
Newspaper Awards
Bennington Banner. 7 volunteers from AmeriCorps*VISTA, working with the Bennington post office, collected 300 pounds of books and mailed them to the Fund for Public Schools-WTC School Relief Fund.
Brattleboro Reformer. 22 Putney Central School writing students drafted essays proposing Make A Difference Day projects. Students voted to stage a 4-mile walk- or bike-athon that raised $530 for Heifer Project International.
Burlington Free Press. 16 volunteers, brought together by the Vermont Council on the Humanities, conducted a story hour for 12 inmates of the South Burlington Correctional Facility and their children. The group gave novels to prisoners and gave children's books to the kids.
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Virginia
Newspaper Awards
(Alexandria) Northern Virginia Journal. 15 volunteers from Catholics for Housing, EDS and the Homestretch transitional housing program repaired plumbing, mended the fence, landscaped and corrected flaws at a transitional facility in Centreville.
(Arlington) Northern Virginia Journal. 7 members of VFW John Lyon Post 3150 cleaned up a litter-intensive portion of U.S. Route 29.
Bristol Herald Courier. Before Oct. 27, children of St. Paul United Methodist Church in Wytheville visited offices, neighbors' homes, churches and shops explaining why they wanted to help feed the poor. On Make A Difference Day, they collected 4,019 food items for the Agape Pantry.
(Charlottesville) Daily Progress. Volunteers, including 50 from Alpha Phi Omega fraternity at the University of Virginia and Waynesboro high school students, led by Friends Who Care Ministries of Batesville, transformed a ramshackle house into a center for clothing donations.
Danville Register & Bee. Patricia Dudley, 47, daughter Lacey, 13, and friends Mindy and Ashley Barley, both 13, braved cold, windy weather to rake leaves in the yards of 3 elderly neighbors, a church and a condemned house.
(Fairfax) Northern Virginia Journal. 140 teens -- some with a range of handicaps -- cleaned, painted, beautified and did myriad odd jobs at Shelter House, a homeless facility that serves Fairfax County. Participants also shopped for wallpaper and curtains, built bird feeders, and installed fencing and latticework in the yard.
(Fredericksburg) Free Lance-Star.For their 1st Make A Difference Day, 168 Mary Washington College students teamed with 75 kids from homeless shelters and foster homes to do a variety of service projects, including making flash cards for English as a Second Language students and cards for Pentagon rescue workers, pledging to do good deeds, then having a celebratory pizza party.
(Lynchburg) News & Advance. 14 American Legion Auxiliary Unit 16 members packed and delivered 18 "love bags" for children victimized by domestic violence. The totes held crayons, coloring books, games, socks, underwear, puzzles, snacks, pencils and blank journals.
Suffolk News-Herald. When Dozier Middle School Youth to Youth members decided to help landscape a former crack house that was being renovated to become a homeless shelter, they thought they'd simply lay mulch and plant bulbs. But first they had to remove broken bottles, syringes, cans, condoms and knives from the future flower beds before embarking on their planting effort.
(Waynesboro) News Virginian. Waynesboro Junior Woman's Club put all their efforts into 1 basket -- actually, 20 baskets -- for Habitat for Humanity. They held a bingo fest with Longaberger baskets as prizes and raised $1,305 for the Staunton-Augusta-Waynesboro Habitat chapter.
Winchester Star. Motivated by Berryville resident and expert sewer Mary Stokes, 9 Shenandoah University Occupational Therapy volunteers spent 6 hours crafting 200 items -- wheelchair harnesses, clothes, stuffed toys and pillows --- for disabled orphans in Jamaica. "When people think of Jamaica, they think of beaches and piña coladas, but we go and help these children with terrible deformities," says organizer Kathy Adams. "It really inspires us to want to do more."
(Woodbridge) Potomac News. 18 Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sisters and community volunteers bagged donations from passers-by at a supermarket. The group collected 2,000 items and $50 for a Prince William County pantry.
Washington
Newspaper Awards
(Aberdeen) Daily World. 40 members of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Montesano outfitted 60 needy neighbors with a donated jacket or coat and a homemade afghan, knitted or crocheted.
(Bellevue) Eastside Journal. For the 4th year, the Church of Scientology of Washington State's Environmental Task Force celebrated Make A Difference Day. Last year, the group adopted Seattle's 14-acre Kinnear Park. This year at the park, in the pouring rain, 34 members cleaned, landscaped and donated a park bench and plaque in honor of 9/11 heroes.
Bellingham Herald. Krista Gordon and daughter Lyndsay, with Teri Bodensteiner and daughter Kate, organized a "sowing" party with 150 volunteers from Scout troops, youth groups and churches. They made 250 blankets for Manhattan schoolchildren and 9/11 families. 1 blanket went to a woman who had lost her husband on Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania. In her note of thanks, she wrote: "I sleep with it every night."
(Bremerton) Sun. 9 adults with developmental disabilities, clients of Kitsap Tenant Support Services, filled wish lists for a St. Vincent de Paul shelter serving women and children: $150 in new dishes, pillows, towels, hairbrushes and toiletries, which they bought at Wal-Mart and delivered on Oct. 27.
(Everett) Herald. The Washington Oakes Retirement Community partnered with 3 other senior groups to take Cocoon House under their wing. Cocoon House provides critical services to homeless and at-risk youth in Snohomish County. They donated "mountains" of toiletries, clothing, bedding, towels, shoes, résumé stationery and art supplies, plus $300 for the kids to get haircuts.
(Kent) South County Journal. For its 7th Make A Difference Day, Kent's Parks and Recreation Department directed 161 volunteers of all ages, working a cumulative 1,000 hours in the rain, to spruce up 3 city parks. They planted trees, bulbs and shrubs, resurfaced trails and playgrounds, and installed playground equipment.
(Mount Vernon) Skagit Valley Herald. 6 members of Boy Scout Troop 73 of Bow went to Alger food bank and cut up nearby trees that had fallen. They split and stacked the wood for use as firewood. They also delivered 105 50-pound boxes of potatoes donated by a farmer.
(Olympia) Olympian. 8 girls from Brownie Troop 113 in Tumwater weeded, mulched and planted donated azaleas and bulbs in a neglected 12-foot-square flower bed at Tumwater Hill Elementary School in the cold and rain.
(Port Angeles) Peninsula Daily News. 18-year-old Janise Anderson of Vashon Island organized a toy drive to benefit an orphanage in Ethiopia for HIV-positive children. With help from her church youth group, she collected and sorted hundreds of toys donated from schools and raised $800 in a rummage sale.
(Tacoma) News Tribune. 488 Fort Lewis volunteers, young and old, performed 61 projects, such as delivering meals for elderly and disabled people, landscaping a nature sanctuary and collecting toys and clothes for the needy.
(Vancouver) Columbian. For the 3rd year, senior citizen Clara Foes hand-sewed or crocheted clothes for premature babies, lap robes for hospitalized veterans and stocking caps for St. Jude's children's ranch and women with cancer.
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin. David Parodi's 30 5th-graders at Prospect Point Elementary ran a yard and bake sale, which raised $364 for the Red Cross' 9/11 and disaster relief funds, the Salvation Army and the Uniformed Firefighters Association.
Wenatchee World. Cascade Elementary School coaxed 170 volunteers to help give away 86 free bikes and 100 helmets, and traded up or fixed bikes for those in need.
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West Virginia
Newspaper Awards
(Beckley) Register-Herald. Christmas came early for 15 Oceana families who lost their homes and belongings in a devastating flood July 8. 15 middle-schoolers -- a few of whom were homeless themselves because of the floods -- raised $300 to buy Christmas trees and ornaments for those who had lost theirs. On Oct. 27, the group bought ornaments, lights and garland at a dollar store, then decorated the trees and delivered them to the families. "These people have nothing, so we didn't go to a house where they didn't cry," said Edna Green, the group's parent volunteer.
Bluefield Daily Telegraph. 200 volunteers -- from Concord College in Athens, W.Va., Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va., the Student Nurses Association at Mountain State University in Beckley, and Maxwell Hill Elementary School 4-H, also in Beckley -- built and stayed in "box cities" to raise awareness and money for the homeless. The students collected $2,000 for Scottie's Place, a summer camp in the mountains near Peterstown that serves children in shelters as far away as Charleston, S.C., and Philadelphia.
Charleston Daily Mail. 50 Southern Appalachian Labor School Youthbuild program members took part in 5 projects in Kincaid. Students erected a wheelchair ramp, cleaned a vacant lot, scrubbed homes damaged by floodwaters, beautified a cemetery and handed out coats, diapers, baby food, wool blankets and clothing to the impoverished.
(Elkins) Inter-Mountain. Popular Longaberger baskets boosted the amount raised by Davis & Elkins College's Students in Free Enterprise. The group sold raffle tickets for $1 and earned $250 for a charity that counsels pregnant women.
(Huntington) Herald-Dispatch. 225 volunteers from 2 counties completed 107 quilts for victims of the state's July 8 floods. 1 quilt was auctioned off, raising $410 to buy additional quilting materials, and publicity generated by the effort pulled in donations to make 300 hand-pieced blankets and to buy 200 more after Make A Difference Day.
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Wisconsin
Newspaper Awards
(Appleton) Post-Crescent. Molly Quigley, 18, and her friends created "Every Girl's a Princess," an event where mothers paid $20 for their daughters to dress up in gowns, rhinestone-studded heels and tiaras, eat lunch and make a craft. Quigley's project raised $5,000 for the Harbor House women's shelter.
(Beaver Dam) Daily Citizen. 30 Kiwanians collected, sorted and delivered school supplies of rest mats, backpacks, pencils, glue and scissors to the Beaver Dam School District. The club collected enough to outfit 50 needy pupils.
(Eau Claire) Leader-Telegram. 17 Spring Valley Girl Scouts delivered the bounty of their Make A Difference Day effort -- 458 new and like-new books -- to the Spring Valley library and a county home-care program.
Green Bay Press-Gazette. Seth Kutzleb, 9, sang, danced and performed for 2 hours at a neighborhood park, raising $60 for a scholarship fund for the children of 9/11 attack victims. Since then, Kutzleb has been invited to other Green Bay venues and has collected $300 more.
Janesville Gazette. Edison Middle School's 300 music and choir students collected soda can pull tabs for the Madison Ronald McDonald House. They collected 24 pounds -- when recycled, enough to pay for a family stay for a night and a half.
(Manitowoc) Herald Times Reporter. Retired and Senior Volunteer Program and Manitowoc Volunteer Center supporters hit the mall to encourage people to spend time with senior citizens. The group passed out 300 fliers about the "friendly visit" effort; 30 who received the information paid visits to a nursing or group home.
Monroe Times. 6 Big Brothers Big Sisters and their "littles" collected 10 boxes of toys, clothes and goods for the needy in Green County. The items were donated to the county food pantry and the Green County Christmas Stocking.
Oshkosh Northwestern. 25 Green Lake County Food Pantry volunteers conducted a Halloween festival to fill the pantry's newly purchased freezer. Participants brought food as admission and donated enough to feed 100 people.
(Rhinelander) Daily News. Jacob Ellis, 10, collected 130 pounds of aluminum cans to be recycled for the Ronald McDonald House. The project, which Jacob does every Make A Difference Day, was done in memory of his older sister Ashley, who died of cancer before Jacob was born, and his 9-year-old neighbor, Timmy Wich, who was sick with cancer and died 4 days after Make A Difference Day 2001.
Sheboygan Press. 67 Maywood park volunteers held a night hike and campfire sing-along for 300 Sheboygan residents. Proceeds will be used for community projects at the 120-acre, non-profit nature center.
Watertown Daily Times. 25 St. Bernard Elementary students and 25 parents groomed horses and cleaned facilities at a therapeutic equestrian center. The kids also learned how horseback riding helps physically and mentally disabled people.
(Waukesha) Freeman. 500-plus members of the Milwaukee VFW Post 9469 and its Ladies Auxiliary sponsored a clothing drive for the Zablocki Veterans Administration Medical Center, the Casa Maria Shelter and Vets Place Central, a shelter for homeless vets. The volunteers collected enough shirts, pants, socks, skirts, jackets and dresses to outfit 250 people.
Wausau Daily Herald. 6 Altrusa International volunteers hosted a Halloween party for residents who suffer from advanced Alzheimer's disease. Residents enjoyed ice cream sundaes and danced with the volunteers.
(Wisconsin Rapids) Daily Tribune. 25 Grand Rapids Lions and Lioness attendants served chow to 225 hungry volunteers working on various Make A Difference Day projects. The hearty meal: barbecue, hot dogs, fruit and drinks, courtesy of the Lions Club.
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Wyoming
Newspaper Awards
Laramie Daily Boomerang. 10 University of Wyoming students of legal drinking age hit the bars of Laramie on Make A Difference Day to raise money for the Salvation Army's 9/11 disaster relief fund. The small group of Cowboys raised $350.
Local Awards: States A-M
National Honorees: Everyday people showing courage and goodwill
Encore Honorees: Repeated excellence with Make A Difference Day
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Honorees
