Inaugural Montgomery Serves Awards -- 2011 Winners Announced

[Howard Hartman]

Inaugural Montgomery Serves Awards -- 2011 Winners Announced

The inaugural Montgomery Serves Awards ceremony will take place Monday, April 30, 2012 at 6:30, at Imagination Stage in Bethesda. This event will honor some of our County’s most outstanding community leaders and dedicated volunteers. The “2011 Montgomery Serves Awards” recognize extraordinary volunteer community service of an individual, community group, youth, and business last year.

Frank Ierardi
2011 Montgomery Serves Award – Individual
From seniors in need of tax assistance to hikers and bikers and first graders just learning to read, Frank Ierardi’s volunteer work has made Montgomery County a better place. Mr. Ierardi retired from IBM in 1997 and founded Woodworkers for Children Charity. In 2011, WCC volunteers made 1,300 hand-crafted toys for at-risk children. Mr. Ierardi’s “Reading is Terrific” program provided books for 380 first graders to take home in 2011. As a volunteer with the Seneca Creek Greenway Trail Coalition, he maintains a section of the trail. In his eleventh year as a counselor in the AARP Tax Aide program, Mr. Ierardi currently is the site chief at the Damascus Senior Center that helped 121 senior taxpayers last year.

Phanna Iamlek
2011 Montgomery Serves Award – Youth
Phanna Iamlek, a senior at Sherwood High School, gives from her heart with every volunteer activity she undertakes. In 2011, she logged a remarkable 861 volunteer hours at Winter Growth, an adult medical day care and assisted living center in Olney, where she worked with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients. She volunteered hundreds more hours at MedStar Montgomery Medical Center, Olney Library, and Brookside Gardens. “My summer days flew by as I immersed myself in the Winter Growth culture and formed relationships with both employees and participants,” she observed. “In doing so, I took immense pride in volunteering, especially when one of the participants with Alzheimer’s started recognizing me and telling me that she appreciated my presence.”

Southern Management Corporation
2011 Montgomery Serves Award – Business
Thanks to 66 volunteers from Southern Management Corporation’s Montgomery County Cluster, the clients of Shepherd’s Table have a place that feels a lot more like home. Shepherd’s Table, located in downtown Silver Spring, provides the basic necessities of food, shelter, and clothing to the homeless. The SMC crew volunteered their expertise and talents to transform the Shepherd’s Table experience. They landscaped the front entrance; fixed damaged drywall in the lobby, kitchen, and common areas; and gave the building a fresh coat of paint. In less than six hours, the entire building was transformed into a welcoming residence. The beautification took planning, determination, and compassion from each of the SMC Cluster volunteers who gave unselfishly of their time.

Meals on Wheels of Wheaton
2011 Montgomery Serves Award – Community Group
Meals on Wheels of Wheaton is a model volunteer-run community nonprofit organization. Volunteers from local churches in the Wheaton area established the organization 40 years ago to help homebound elderly and disabled remain in their own homes. Today, volunteers deliver nutritious meals to 80 homebound residents of the greater Wheaton area five days each week. A part-time cook is the only paid employee. Each weekday morning, four volunteers pack the meals prepared by the cook while another volunteer coordinates the day’s operations. At 11 a.m., ten more volunteers arrive to go out on five delivery routes with the freshly prepared food and a kind word for each recipient. That’s 15 volunteers each weekday from an active pool of 150 volunteers who make a huge difference for these homebound County residents.

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