Michigan volunteer efforts lauded

Date: June 21, 2007
By: Oralandar Brand-Williams
Source: The Detroit News

DETROIT -- They serve in soup kitchens. They teach adults to read. They mentor fatherless boys. They do it willingly and freely.

On Wednesday evening, Gov. Jennifer Granholm thanked them for their selfless spirit with Governor's Service Awards during the Miracle of Volunteering awards ceremony at the Fox Theatre.

"This is an incredible group of people," said Granholm at the event. "This is what Michigan is all about. This is who we are."

Eleven Michigan organizations, businesses and individuals were honored for their volunteerism throughout Michigan.

Those honored:

Comcast Communications of Detroit, which received an Outstanding Corporate Citizenship Award

Bridget Gaitor of Taylor, who received a Youth Volunteer Award of Excellence

Winning Futures-Mentoring Solutions program in Warren, which was honored with an Innovative Mentoring Program Award. The organization serves children in grades three through 12 in Highland Park, Oak Park, Warren and Pontiac through its educational mentoring program. Kristina Marshall, the program's first participant and now its president and CEO, was overwhelmed by the honor, she said.

"It's amazing. It's really a tribute to our mentors, our business sponsors and mostly our kids," said Marshall, 30."It's a wonderful tribute. I'm really grateful for it."

Madonna University and the All Saints Neighborhood Center received a Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Partnership Award for a community partnership program with a variety of community services such as literacy tutoring, computer training, and a health and wellness program at a community center run by All Saints Catholic Church.

Lenore Croudy of Flint received the Governor George Romney Lifetime Achievement Award for Volunteerism.

Doug Heslip of Marquette received the Exemplary Volunteer Service Award

Tuesday Toolmen of Kalamazoo received the Exemplary Community Service Program Award

Carlas Quinney Jr. of Lansing received the Outstanding Mentor Award

Margaret Yake of Lexington received the Senior Volunteer Award of Excellence

Special awards were given to Hugo E. Braun Jr., who received the Russell G. Mawby Award for Philanthropy for outstanding service in Saginaw County and Molly Dobson of Ann Arbor, who received the Community Foundation Award for Philanthropy.

You can reach Oralandar Brand-Williams at (313) 222-2027 or bwilliams@detnews.com.

Finalists see duty to help others

Date: June 20, 2007
By: Julie Edgar
Source: Detroit Free Press

GOVERNOR REWARDS VOLUNTEERS' EFFORTS
Awards ceremony tonight in Detroit

Gov. Jennifer Granholm will honor citizens tonight who have given back to Michigan by volunteering.

The annual awards dinner starts at 7 p.m. at the Fox Theatre in Detroit.

Four individual awards, a corporate award and three philanthropist awards will be given.

"Nobody does this to get recognition, but it's nice to be recognized," said Mary Grill, director of communication for the Michigan Community Service Commission.

Eight metro Detroit people have been nominated for individual awards. The Free Press profiled four of them on Tuesday. To read about them, go to www.freep.com. Here are the remaining local finalists for the individual award:

Teen helps at hospital

In the gift shop at Oakwood Heritage Hospital in Taylor, Bridget Gaitor spends part of her weekend volunteering when others her age would rather spend the day hanging out with friends.

The Taylor teen not only volunteers at the gift shop, but she also canvasses doctors' offices for donations of magazines to give to patients.

"I wanted to go out and help people -- not just the people I knew, the people in the community," said the 17-year-old recent graduate of Harry S Truman High School in Taylor who is nominated for the youth volunteer award. "I believe you're supposed to give back."

One of her earliest acts of helping others was organizing book drives when she was a student at Nolan Middle School in Detroit.

Bridget donated collected books to the school library and the Detroit Public Library.

In the past, she has worked with young children at the Boys and Girls Club in Romulus and spearheaded Drug Free Taylor Day through the Oakwood Taylor Teen Health Center.

Last year, she served as president of the African-American Teen Leadership Council at her high school. Her advice to other teens who may be considering volunteering: Do it.

"They should really get into it," she said. "It fulfills a lot. You get to meet a lot of new people, learn a lot of new things."

By Cecil Angel

Senior was helped himself

For more than half his life, Herman Dooha has been a volunteer.

And the 84-year-old from Detroit continues to do so.

For at least 50 years, he has given his time to social welfare and economic organizations. Currently, he is board president for the Citizens for Better Care, a Detroit-based nonprofit with offices around the state that advocates for long-term, quality care for people who need it.

He said giving back is important to him because of all that he received as a teen living on welfare during the Great Depression.

"I think I have an obligation to do what I can to assist people" and "to motivate people to fulfill their full potential."

For most of his life, Dooha has worked in the accounting field for companies and organizations such as New Detroit and the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. He also is a board member for Simon House, a Detroit nonprofit that provides housing for homeless women who have AIDS and their children.

Dooha, nominated for the senior volunteer award, is the widower of former Detroit City Councilwoman Maryann Mahaffey, who served the city for more than 30 years until 2005.

By Bowdeya Tweh

Idea catches on with others

A conversation with her daughter sparked an idea in Clarkston resident Kimberly Viazanko: Create a program so children, even those as young as 5, can help the community through service projects.

"I was born to do this," said Viazanko, 44.

And now, four years later, the program -- Serving Our Community Kid Style, or SOCKS -- has resulted in her nomination for the Exemplary Volunteer Service Award, something that embarrasses and pleases the full-time mom of three.

SOCKS debuted in Independence Elementary School -- which all of Viazanko's children attended -- and has spread to the rest of Clarkston Community Schools and even to schools in Ohio and Colorado through word-of-mouth.

Some SOCKS projects include baking 1,200 muffins for Meals on Wheels and making fleece blankets for Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak.

It was supposed to be a small, one-time thing, but Viazanko said that after the initial SOCKS effort in 2004, it was so popular that it continued to grow.

So far, more than 2,300 students and teachers have participated. Viazanko estimates that more than 2,500 people in the community have benefited.

By Korie Wilkins

Committed to her cause

For her hands-on commitment to many social causes, particularly her work on behalf of people with Alzheimer's disease and their caregivers, former WKBD-TV (Channel 50) newswoman Amyre Makupson has been nominated for the governor's Exemplary Volunteer Service Award.

Makupson, 58, a Southfield mother of two, was nominated by the Alzheimer's Association of Michigan, where she has served on the board for 20 years. The organization helped her when her mother was diagnosed with the disease.

"I've been fortunate my entire life," Makupson said. "For some reason, I knew it and I always reached out," she said. "If I have time, what's wrong with trying to make it easier for someone else?

"On the selfish end, I believe there's a heaven, and I believe I'll be rewarded."

By Julie Edgar

Program's power is in organized sports

Date: June 21, 2007
By: DESIREE COOPER,FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
Source: Detroit Free Press

City kids find haven at Westside club

Erica Wright, 61, stood proudly before a wall plastered with newspaper articles and graduation pictures of children and alumni of her program.

She is the founder of the Westside Cultural and Athletic Club, a grandiose name for a shoestring program designed to offer the kids of her impoverished, drug-ridden neighborhood constructive alternatives. Wright has operated the program for more than 30 years from a two-story house next to her childhood home on Detroit's west side.

When I visited her earlier this spring, she pointed with pride to the articles. But her pride was mixed with sorrow.

"I have stopped going to funerals," she said, after recounting how several of the children pictured had been killed over the years. She then pulled open a drawer full of obituaries.

"This is ridiculous," she said. "You have no idea of the tragedies these kids go through and survive."

Running for their lives

Wright knows what they're up against. On a field trip once, she brushed by a kid who was sleeping on the bus.

"The child jumped awake and yelled, 'No! Stop touching me!' " Wright said. "I felt so bad. So many of these kids are being abused."

The Westside Cultural and Athletic Club is a haven, where, for a few hours after school or on long summer days, children can play sports, do arts and crafts and study.

"No gangs, no drugs or alcohol," said Wright, ticking off the rules. "You have to stay in school, respect adults and others and be willing to learn. This is an exclusive club -- it takes a lot to do that."

Rubbie McCoy, 36, was part of the club from fifth through 11th grade.

"Me and my girlfriends used to just walk up and down the street; we didn't have anything to do," McCoy said. "If it wasn't for Erica. I don't know if I would have been going to a pool."

McCoy is now a swimming instructor at Detroit's Chadsey High School. Her daughter, Porscha, 11, is a champion swimmer and honor roll student who said she loves playing basketball and swimming with the club, just like her mother did.

"I want to be in the Olympics," Porscha said. "I like to win."

One more at the door

Wright wants the 168 children who came through her program last year to be winners, and she will do what it takes to make them feel special. In May, she organized 71 neighbors to clean overgrown lots.

"We cleared a path from the church to the school so that everyone can keep an eye on the children as they go back and forth," she said. "Clean minds, clean bodies, clean communities."

Wright was a computer operator with the IRS until 1976, when her 9-year-old son's school baseball team started practicing in a nearby field. Neighborhood kids, who weren't on the team, started pelting them with rocks.

"I took them aside and played with them," Wright said. "The next day, they were on my porch asking 'What time is practice?' "

Wright immediately saw the power that organized sports had to defuse anger, teach discipline and open up children to learning.

"It broke my heart when I realized how many of them couldn't read," said Wright, who has won many awards, including the 2000 Founder's Award from the Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame. "Sports are a way to get them to vent their frustrations. They can run their anger off."

But for every Rubbie and Porscha McCoy, there are countless others who slip through Wright's fingers. In 2004, Alicia Jackson, 24, was killed in the neighborhood along with her 7-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter in a domestic dispute.

Jackson had been in Wright's program as a child, and, a "good little girl, a great teenager and a beautiful adult," Wright told the Free Press after the killings.

Wright said she has wanted to quit, especially since "too many people who could do something just don't care." But then another person comes to her door looking for something to do.

As if on cue, a man flagged Wright from across the street as I was leaving.

"Hey, Miss Erica!" he hollered. "When are we going to have another neighborhood cleanup?"

Contact DESIREE COOPER at 313-222-6625 or dcooper@freepress.com.

Did You Vote Today?

In a couple hours, the polls will close. Have you given your voice today?

Today, we all have a political voice. It is our chance to stand up and lead on behalf of our families and communities to elect public officials and vote on key initiatives. I'm about to go cast my first ballot as a Michigan resident. As a relative newcomer and homeowner in the city of Detroit, I'm looking forward to reflecting on the candidates and issues to vote based on what I think is best for my community.

At United Way, we've learned the importance of giving the community a real voice. It helps inform our work so we can build upon the aspirations we share across the region. We are enriched every time we listen and garner feedback from our partners, community leaders, and the people who live and work here everyday.

At United Way, you have a community voice. A place to reflect and share your experiences trying to make a difference; a place to find volunteer opportunities; to give back; or to share your views on what you care most about.

Regardless of the political outcome every November, we will continue to find pathways and opportunities for the community to share what matters to them and to take action to make our region a better place. We will work with all of our elected officials to ensure those voices are heard as well.