East Coweta High School eleventh grader Sam Huynh,has been named the winner of the second annual Community Service Team (CST) scholarship from the Coweta Community Foundation (CCF).
The award was presented on May 6 at the group’s luncheon at Banning Mills following a morning of team-building exercises.
Those at the meeting heard from Kendall Robinson, founder of the nonprofit Love Rolls, which collects donations to provide toilet paper to the homeless. An eleventh grader at Greater Atlanta Christian School, Kendall said one of her favorite quotes is from Gandhi, who said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
“Service has been a daily part of my life,” Kendall said, and in the summer of 2014, she participated in a teen summit with the Atlanta Community Food Bank. She volunteered with a food pantry.
“I was responsible for handing out paper towels and toilet paper,” she said, noting that she was shocked when a man she met told her that he made a single roll of toilet paper last for an entire month.
Also at the CST event, board member John Herbert Cranford, Jr. introduced Community Service Team members Bailey Babb, Seiler Rivers and Chloe Epstein, who presented this year’s CST grant to the Coweta Organization for Riding, Rehabilitation and Learning (CORRAL). Founder Marie Powell accepted the award on behalf of CORRAL, a therapeutic horseback riding program, which she noted will soon celebrate its 30th anniversary.
“This is a great organization and a great group of young people,” Powell said in accepting the grant.
Powell encouraged them to keep giving back to the community and said, “Every time you help somebody else, you’re going to be blessed.”
Members of the Community Service Team operate as a board and form relationships with local nonprofits. The goal is for these young leaders to have the opportunity to sit on a local nonprofit board by the time they are juniors or seniors in high school.
Board Member Joe Wyant told the group, “What we’re hoping to do with the Foundation is to raise the next generation of board members.”
Applications for the 2017-2018 Community Service Team will be available beginning June 1 from the CCF office.
For more information, call the Coweta Community Foundation at 770-253-1833 or visit cowetafoundation.org
