Youth volunteer award a Cinderella tale
Published: October 26, 2005
Tempe teenager Samantha Fox, her mother and a couple of friends came up with a great idea several years ago.
The Cinderella Affair, a prom-dress donation drive, has grown into a Valley-wide annual charity operation, collecting more than 2,000 prom dresses in 2005.
For this and many years of volunteer work with the National Charity League, the Corona del Sol High School senior will be presented with the United Way’s East Valley Youth Volunteer of the Year Award on Thursday. Volunteering always has been a way of life for her, she said, but being selected for the award was a complete surprise.
“I’ve always done it. My parents have always had us do it,” Fox said. “I’ve done it through church since I was probably 3. We’d go to feed the homeless, and I’d go with my parents. So we’ve always done philanthropy and I’ve always just liked it.”
Her advice to other young volunteers: “You have to like what you’re doing. Find something you enjoy and help in any way that you can.”
Also on the award list is:
• Valerie Cook, a pediatric nurse practitioner from Sun Lakes, dedicates pediatric care to charity through the free San Marcos Clinic.
Cook will receive the United Way’s East Valley Volunteer of the Year Award for her work, which includes volunteer medical assistance in foreign countries.
“I go with the Flying Samaritans to Mexico to a free clinic several times a year,” said Cook, who also traveled to Indonesia this year to help with tsunami relief.
She said her passion lies in helping children reach their full potential.
“If it means getting kids into Head Start, they need their physicals,” Cook said. “These kids in school need exercise, and if they need sports physicals then I’ll do those. This is all done through the blessings of San Marcos Clinic, which is sponsored in part by a grant through the Chandler Unified School District.
“You don’t go into this stuff for awards. You get out of it what you can give to these people who have nothing. That’s the nice part.”
• Mesa businessman Michael Pollack is receiving an East Valley Volunteer of the Year Award. Pollack has participated in a handful of notable causes, including drumming in a band which performs to raise money for charity.
Last year, he helped launch the second annual Feed the Need Valley-wide food drive for St. Mary’s Food Bank. He was named Father of the Year by the American Diabetes Foundation and has given money to causes that include the Gilbert Education Association and the American Cancer Society.
• Tempe native Andrew Ortiz will receive an East Valley Volunteer of the Year Award for his many hours of service beginning in 1982, when he served on the Tempe Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council at age 13.
Ortiz since has volunteered on boards and commissions as well as the Tempe Community Action Agency, Tempe Boys & Girls Club, YMCA, NewTown CDC and the Arizona Coalition to End Homelessness. He’s logged more than 1,000 hours of community service each year since 1992.
• Receiving the first East Valley Lifetime Achievement Award is long-time Chandler resident Coy Payne, a retired educator who grew up in the East Valley and served as Chandler’s first African-American mayor as well as two terms on the City Council.
Payne volunteers for the non-profit Chandler Self-Help Foundation through the Mount Olive Baptist Church, which mentors underprivileged youths. A local junior high and a high school gymnasium have been named in his honor.
The awards luncheon takes place at Villa Siena in Gilbert. It’s a fitting location since Gilbert Public Schools was named United Way’s East Valley Organization of the Year. The district is being recognized for outstanding character education programs, parenting classes, prevention programs, encouraging student philanthropy, generosity to the United Way and offering a network of social workers in 18 school campuses.
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