10/15/2007
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Margie Smith Simmons, 327.3690 |
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Mayor, Mrs. Peterson honor volunteers
INDIANAPOLIS - Mayor Bart Peterson and Indianapolis First Lady Amy Minick Peterson honored 20 local volunteers with the 2007 Mayor's Community Service Award today.
“Our community has a rich heritage of volunteerism,” said Mayor Peterson. “The Mayor's Community Service Award not only honors these exceptional volunteers, but also serves as a tribute to community service in Indianapolis.”
Since 1993, more than 570 Indianapolis volunteers have been recognized for their contributions to community service. Today's volunteers will join past recipients of the Mayor's Community Service Award, in being honored with personalized, engraved bricks that comprise the Mayor's Community Service Award Plaza. The plaza, located at the northern end of the Downtown Canal Walk extension, consists of nearly 2,000 bricks and was dedicated in October 2001.
Criteria for Mayor's Community Service Award applicants included performance of direct personal service and demonstration of initiative in volunteer activities. All categories of applicants were encouraged, from the arts, to special needs, to education.
“The winners of this year's Mayor's Community Service Award are the embodiment of our Hoosier spirit,” said Amy Minick Peterson, the event's honorary chairperson. “Each day these people mentor children, advocate for the arts, orchestrate neighborhood cleanups and help our homeless neighbors. I'm pleased to honor these exceptional volunteers.”
Applicants representing a diverse range of community service activities received awards. Recipients of the 2006 Mayor's Community Service Awards are listed below.
Vally Allen
Vally has served as troop leader for Hoosier Capital Girl Scouts Council and is currently a Council Leader Trainer. Vally also presents wellness seminars at no charge for Indianapolis residents, and volunteers as a board member in two neighborhood associations.
Jake Asher
Jake is president of the Indianapolis Council of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. During his tenure, the Society has purchased a 65,000 square foot building which has been renovated as a new food pantry that serves 3,000 families a week.
Dick Bender
Dick volunteers over 30 hours a month and has given over 975 hours in the last few years. With the 2,900 meals that Second Helpings prepares each day, volunteer kitchen assistants work hard at making nutritious meals from rescued food.
Colleen Bolden Smith
Colleen is president of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, which focuses on leadership development, gender equity and advocacy on behalf of women of color. Yearly, the Coalition raises funds for its signature program, Academy for Girls, which has made a huge difference in the lives of many young women.
Terry Bowen
Terry serves as Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure Indianapolis ambassador to mobilize others in the fight against breast cancer. Terry is a member of the Ivy Tech Foundation board which partners with donors to invest in Ivy Tech Community College, and is also president of the Bowen Foundation which provides scholarships to African American students attending vocational technical schools in Indiana.
Jeffery L. Cardwell
Jeff tirelessly commits 40-50 hours per month toward community service projects with the bulk of time spent as president of the Gateway Business Alliance and the People Helping People Network. Jeff is actively involved in soliciting donations from the building/construction industry for projects such as Habitat for Humanity, Fuller Center for Housing, and the Timmy Foundation.
Mary Clark
Mary currently serves as president of the Lafayette Square Area Coalition, working to redevelop and strengthen the Lafayette Square area. Under Mary’s leadership the Coalition has more than 300 people on its contact list and hosts about 60 people at monthly meetings with committees working on a land use plan, and special events to draw people back to the area.
Amy Cunningham
Amy founded and served as president of the Marian College Chapter of College Mentors for Kids from 2003-2007. College Mentors matches 40 children in a one-on-one relationship with Marian student mentors which gives children the exposure, motivation, and tools to make higher education an attainable goal.
Lew Frizzell
Lew has played a vital role in several special events and major conferences, including the FFA National Convention, Midwest Travel Writers Association and the ROSE Awards. Lew is also devoted to St. Francis Hospice where he serves on the board and assists with planning, researching and traveling to other hospice houses.
Ellen Greenleaf
Ellen assisted in bringing together presidents from 20 diverse women’s civic, social and service organizations throughout Indianapolis to network, enhance leadership skills, and cultivate opportunities to build collaborations. Ellen has also chaired fundraisers for March of Dimes, Riley Hospital and Little Red Door initiatives, and helped raise funds for numerous local organizations.
Gwen Kelley
Gwen works almost full time volunteering to serve the youth and families of Indianapolis, and serves on boards and steering committees of the Family Strengthening Coalition, Indiana Commission on African American Males, and Freetown Village. This year she also served on the Community Crime Prevention Task Force and the IPS Drop Out Prevention Task Force. .
Santos (Mac) Magana
Sgt. Major Magana devotes every Thursday evening and many weekends to the youth of Central Indiana through the Young Marines program, which teaches leadership, discipline, citizenship, fitness and academic achievement, as well as self confidence and team building. Under Mac’s direction, the Young Marines have worked with veterans’ assistance homes, hospitals and schools to recognize hundreds of veterans providing over 960 hours of community service in 2006.
Florence Maxwell
Florence began providing children’s vision screenings in the 1960s and helped organize and conduct the vision screening program for Indianapolis Head Start. Florence’s input and suggestions for the programs have been and continue to be invaluable as Florence is becoming the go to person between Prevent Blindness Indiana and People of Vision.
Jimmie McMillian
Jimmie spends almost 2,000 hours each year doing community service work, participating in legal advice programs, going to local churches to provide parishioners free legal advice and representing them in minor cases. He also works with the Teen Court project several nights a month through Reach for Youth.
Celisse Morris-Miller
Celisse’s Go Red for Women grassroots awareness campaign impacted more than 4,000 women statewide and over 700 women in Indianapolis. This program is being shared with other American Heart Association offices as a model being the most successful of its kind to date, using a simple, cost effective way to reach women of color to make them aware of their number one health threat.
Mary Reuter
Mary dedicates her life to the service of others, especially the diverse parish family of St. Andrew the Apostle Church and the people of the neighborhood. For more than 25 years, Mary has volunteered at St. Andrew at least 20 hours a week doing cooking, shopping, cleaning the church, manning the office phones, working at the Andy’s Gift and Thrift Shop and Food Link, and watering and weeding the church garden.
Mike A. Somsel
Mike has created several unique programs in scouting, including the “Gathering of Eagles,” an annual banquet usually attended by hundreds of Eagle Scouts. He also volunteers with Meridian Kessler Neighborhood Association doing alley clean up, tree planting, beautification, and crime watch and he serves many other organizations including the Indianapolis Art Center, Mozel Sanders, American Heart Association and Cancer Society to name a few.
Steven F. Walker
Steve devotes 20 percent of his week volunteering for United Way, apart from his other volunteer work. Steve put in place a multi-year plan designed to put United Way on a path toward sustained growth, advocating operating from the mindset of abundance, rather than scarcity, then modeled that philosophy in all his communications and encouraged other companies to increase their support of United Way and together, UWCI raised more money from employees in the workplace than it has ever raised before.
Charles H. Williams
Charles has been involved with Visiting Nurse Service (VNS) since 1997 when he first served on the Board of Directors. Together with Charles’ foresight and that of his colleagues, a proactive approach was enacted related to nursing shortages experienced in the community resulting in the implementation of a point of care system (electronic medical records) with a reduction of paperwork and access to real time patient documentation.
David Woodrupp
David created change and improvement by organizing the highly successful Watson McCord Neighborhood Association. In the first year, David worked to form committees, develop a newsletter, orchestrate clean up projects, develop a website and apply for grants for beautification efforts to redevelop McCord Park as a focal point for the area.
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