Teens making a difference
Published: May 5, 2008
While some of her peers at Neshaminy High are sleeping in or socializing, Jennifer Lentine is teaching Sunday School to kindergartners and spending time with Alzheimer’s patients.
It’s all in a day’s volunteering for Lentine, 18, one of 17 area teens whom the YWCA will recognize Wednesday during the 14th annual Teen Volunteer Awards.
“Children are going to be my future so I try to do a lot with that,” said Lentine, who plans to study elementary and special education at Holy Family University. “I always said I wanted to be a teacher.”
And for seven or eight years, Lentine has taught by example, first as a mother’s helper, then as a baby-sitter and eventually through Neshaminy Cares, a fundraising organization that helps charities such as the March of Dimes and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
President Bush gave Lentine the Presidential Volunteer Service Award for clocking more than 183 hours from April of her sophomore year to April of her junior year. But that wasn’t enough, the ambitious young woman said.
“I bumped it up in 11th and 12th grade,” she said, adding that she made distinguished honor roll for three years straight. “I wanted to try to make a difference in the world I’m living in.”
For Bensalem High senior Royce Cohen, volunteering is like hitting a home run. Literally.
Cohen, an avid tennis player and sports lover, has spent four years coaching softball for Valley Athletic Association. His ulterior motive, he said, is to find a way to spend more time with his little sister.
“When I tell people I coach a team, it’s like “that’s no big deal. That’s fun,’ ” Cohen said. “I look up to the people who volunteer at the old age homes and at the shelter.”
Besides coaching, Cohen has been volunteering since fourth grade. He’s taken two pizza parties to the residents of Wood River Village, serves as president of the National Honor Society and plans to take an anti-smoking campaign to elementary schools sometime before graduation.
“If they realized what the outcome could be of helping someone, that would stimulate kids to [volunteer],” Cohen said.
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: