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GOOD DEED. Members of Lincoln Area Watch Group during one of their patrols to remove litter. The group of Lincoln District activists were selected to win one of this year’s City of Destiny Awards for their efforts to combat blight and crime.

City of Destiny Awards to honor outstanding volunteers

The city of Tacoma will recognize Tacoma’s outstanding volunteers at the 22nd annual City of Destiny Awards May 13. Mayor Bill Baarsma and Tacoma City Council will honor four individuals and four groups for their exemplary service at the 7 p.m. ceremony at Jason Lee Middle School, located at 602 N. Sprague Ave.

The public is invited to join council members as they present awards to this year’s winners, selected by the Citizens Recognition Committee. The City of Destiny honorees are:

Ray Schuler (Adult Leadership)

Ray Schuler is a get-it-done kind of guy, leading him to become a highly effective volunteer leader who has helped guide the Boys & Girls Club of South Puget Sound through a time of unprecedented growth. He served as the volunteer chairman of the board for the organization during 2006 and 2007, two critical years of its highly ambitious “It Just Takes One” capital and endowment campaign. The $60 million campaign, which began in 2004, has raised money to build HOPE Community Centers with a Boys & Girls Club as an anchor at seven locations throughout the South Sound.

Schuler’s work paved the way to secure $40 million in donations and grants. Now, with 75 percent of the goal met and most of 2008 left to do it, the campaign is achievable, Schuler said.

The organization opened its Lakewood HOPE Center last August, the groundbreaking for the Jim and Carolyn Millard Family HOPE Center in Gig Harbor is in the works, and construction of the Donald G. Topping Regional HOPE Center in Tacoma is expected to begin in late 2008.

Randyn Morris (Youth Leadership)

Community service is the family business in the Morris household. Cynthia Morris has volunteered in arts and community organizations for more than 25 years. Her daughter Myranda won a 2004 City of Destiny Award for Youth Leadership for her volunteer efforts. Now it is time for Randyn Morris, her younger brother and a senior at Stadium High School, to be honored. He began volunteering at the age of 6, assisting his mother as she gave tours of Pantages Theater. Morris has led cleanups, beautification and safety projects as a part of South Hilltop Neighborhoods Association. For First Lutheran Church he has served in the homeless feeding program, taught Sunday school and led youth groups.

Morris was a page and served on Washington State Legislature’s Youth Advisory Council, advising legislators on issues affecting young people, including community safety and funding for math and science. He served as a security captain for Tall Ships 2005; participated in Washington Aerospace Scholar program; and through Men In Action, encouraged mentorship activities among men of color, such as Kairos TORCH, a spiritual outreach to incarcerated youth.

Marion “Skip” Young (Adult Sustained Service)

Marion Young, better known as Skip, is tenacious, persistent, maybe even feisty, but always polite. In fact, that description just might be the secret to her success. For more than 15 years, she has been an incredibly effective community activist. The 72-year-old neighborhood grandma has faced drug dealers, gang members, prostitutes and their johns – even gun-wielding criminals – and she has stopped them in their tracks. How? With a smile on her face and concern in her heart. When she would encounter ne’er do wells on her walk-abouts, they would pepper them with an array of concerned questions – Did they need help? Did they need someone? Where did they need to be? Did they need help getting there? The crooks would get uncomfortable, but Skip and her companions kept them occupied with their seemingly naïve inquisitiveness until the police got there.

A Hilltop resident since 1965, Young watched the neighborhood become a place where people lived in fear. So she joined Hilltop Action Coalition when it started in 1989.

She has hosted National Night Out parties in her backyard and participated in Tacoma’s Citizen’s Police Academy. In 1998, Young helped form Bryant Neighbors group, which works to shut down drug houses, paints over graffiti and does litter pick-ups.

Amy Pudists (Youth Service)

Health, fitness and volunteering have gone together for Amy Pudists since she was 12. Now a senior at Wilson High School, Pudists has logged 950 volunteer hours since the summer of 2004. Her first volunteer position was helping with the YMCA’s Fit for Fun and Summer Fitness programs. Pudists is an accomplished athlete in soccer, golf, swimming, bowling and fast-pitch softball, and her athletic pursuits led to an interest in health care. As soon as she was old enough, she volunteered at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital.

Her interest in health care grew as doors opened to more learning and volunteering opportunities, including Medical Explorers at Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup, which included first aid training, and Health Adventures at St. Joseph’s Medical Center, where she learned about a different department of the hospital each month. Pudists now volunteers in the Emergency Department at St. Joe’s, where she helps nurses transport patients and takes them from triage to their rooms. As she plans for college, she maintains a 3.64 grade average and hopes to be admitted to Washington State University’s nursing program or the pre-nursing program at Eastern Washington University or Central Washington University.

Lincoln LAWGs Safe Streets Group (Neighborhood Group or Community Partnership)

Lincoln Area Watch Group (Lincoln LAWGs) has made a huge impact in just a few years. In 2006 and 2007 they organized information pickets to discourage people from giving money to panhandlers.

Along with the panhandlers came their drug deals, prostitution and litter – even human waste on sidewalks and in yards. Parents became uncomfortable walking across the street with young children for fear of encountering an aggressive panhandler or someone urinating in public.

Residents took their concerns to the police and city officials. The idea of demonstrating came up at a neighborhood meeting soon after the group established itself with Safe Streets. In April 2007 Tacoma City Council approved a new anti-panhandling ordinance to help address the neighborhoods’ concerns.

REI employees (Corporation, Business or Entrepreneur)

Last winter’s storms wreaked havoc in Tacoma’s neighborhoods and city streets. And they took their toll on our area parks as well. At Point Defiance Park, cleaning up scattered limbs and debris took months of effort. Maintenance staff had to concentrate on the more traveled public areas and needed help clearing naturalized trails.

As a part of their National Trails Day effort, volunteers from the REI Tacoma store took complete ownership for the success of the first Point Defiance Trails Day.

In all, 43 staff members and family members participated. And when they finished cleaning up the trails, they hosted a booth at the Trails Day Fair, helping to promote Point Defiance’s treasured system of trails that are within the 702-acre park.

Last year, 95 REI employees performed 305 hours of volunteer labor at Point Defiance Park, Blueberry Park and Northwest Trek. Staff with special training offered classes at Tacoma Nature Center, Titlow Lodge and Point Defiance.

University of Puget Sound Project Save (Employee or Union Group)

In the past, in the days leading up to commencement at University of Puget Sound (UPS), anything students left behind in their rooms got tossed. After years of watching mounds of usable items wind up in the trash, Jack Pearce-Droge, director of the university’s Community Involvement and Action Center, wanted to put that resource to work. So 11 years ago, she and other UPS employees and community volunteers started Project Sharing the Abundance Volunteer Effort (SAVE).

Volunteers leave 60-gallon paper bags in each dormitory and housing complex. As move out day looms, students begin to load up the bags with clothing, shoes, kitchen supplies, backpacks, bedding, electronics, lamps, personal care items and food.

Volunteers collect the bags and bring them to the basement of Kilworth Chapel to sort. They dedicated a weekend to pair tennis shoes, sort clothing and bedding, wash clothes or deliver them to the laundry mat, and finally, deliver items to local charities. They have found some interesting uses for commonly donated items – like egg crate mattress pads, which the art department gladly accepts to wrap artwork. The most valuable items donated have included eyeglasses, printers that still work and jewelry. About 250 agencies receive the items.

Metro Parks SHERPAS (Youth/Young Adult Group)

Metro Parks brings many great outdoor events to us, such as Summer Concerts, Art-a-la-Cart, the Salmon Derby, Showcase Tacoma, Fright Night, Turkey Trot and Ethnic Fest.

And none of them would run as smoothly without the expert volunteer help of Student Hosts Enhancing Recreation Programs and Services (SHERPAS).

These student volunteers from Metro Parks Tacoma’s Leadership Experience Apprenticeship Program spend weekends, evenings and summer vacations hosting Metro Parks’ events by greeting guests, setting up, tearing down and whatever else needs to be done. Last year they contributed 4,401 volunteer service hours.

Although events are their focus, they are ready to pitch in with other tasks that promote the parks and Tacoma. Examples included informing residents of neighborhood meetings, helping with the Get Smart summit, First Night and Maritime Fest.

Winners will receive a colorful glass sculpture crafted by students in the Hilltop Artists in Residence Program.

TV Tacoma will record the event to show as a special presentation. The programming schedule can be found at www.tvtacoma.com.

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