Texas’ Justin Churchman of El Paso Named One of America’s Top Ten Youth Volunteers

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Justin Churchman, 18, of El Paso, Texas, was named one of America’s top ten youth volunteers for 2011 in a ceremony today at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, winning a national Prudential Spirit of Community Award for his outstanding volunteer service. Selected from a field of more than 29,000 participants across the country, he received a personal award of $5,000, an engraved gold medallion, a crystal trophy for his school, and a $5,000 grant from The Prudential Foundation for the nonprofit charitable organization of his choice.

“The Prudential Spirit of Community honorees have seen problems in their communities and around the world and have taken action”

Also honored in Washington was Sharon Li of Manvel. She and Justin were named Texas’ top youth volunteers in February, and were officially recognized last night at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, along with the top two youth volunteers of every other state and the District of Columbia. At that event, all of the Prudential Spirit of Community State Honorees for 2011 were presented with $1,000 awards, and congratulated by Academy Award-winning actress Susan Sarandon. The honorees also received engraved silver medallions and an all-expense-paid trip with their parents to Washington, D.C., for this week’s recognition events.

“The Prudential Spirit of Community honorees have seen problems in their communities and around the world and have taken action,” said Ms. Sarandon. “Their compassion to help others should give us all a lot of hope for the future.”

Justin, a senior at Coronado High School, has raised more than $48,000 and recruited more than 75 volunteers to build 18 houses in Juarez, Mexico, despite the rampant drug wars that have frightened away many other American volunteers. When he was 12, Justin’s school organized the building of a home in Juarez through an organization called Casas por Cristo. “From El Paso, you look into Juarez and see miles of shacks made of tires, wood pallets and cardboard, housing thousands of poor,” said Justin. “When my school built for Casas, it changed my life.” For several years, Justin’s school continued to take volunteers over the border to build homes, but like many volunteer groups, stopped when the violence escalated. Justin, though, couldn’t stop. “I had already learned what it meant to provide shelter to someone who had none, and it became critical to me to continue,” he said. So, in 2006 he put together his own team of volunteers to build a three-room house.

The biggest obstacle, according to Justin, was convincing adults that a teen could take on such a project. He spent five months planning and raising money. To raise funds, he made speeches and wrote letters, obtaining support from three companies and many individuals. He made lists of materials and supplies the team would need, got international permits for travel, purchased insurance, and handled the paperwork for the 30 volunteers he had recruited. That first year, his team built a house in three days. After that trip, Justin begged Casas to give him more responsibility. They made him a “junior intern,” and often call upon him to supervise roof building at its sites in Juarez. Moreover, he has continued to raise money for his own building projects; last year the teams he built with finished six houses, achieving his goal of completing 18 houses by his 18th birthday. “I’m motivated by the look in the grateful father’s eyes when I hand him his first set of house keys, and by the mother who told me she’d be warm for the first time in nine years, and by the grown daughter who cried when she saw she had a real door – and that was before we told her it even locked,” said Justin.

Sharon, an eighth-grader at Berry Miller Junior High School in Pearland, founded a nonprofit organization with her siblings that has collected more than $30,000 in cash and 5,500 donated books, articles of clothing, and shoes for young victims of natural disasters. When Sharon was 10, she and her family watched in horror the television reports of the devastation caused by an earthquake in Sichuan, China, where there were more than 90,000 casualties. “I felt so heartbroken for all those families and thought about how horrible it must be for them,” Sharon said. At the time she had just started a newspaper club at school, so she, her sister and brother came up with the idea of publishing a newsletter about the earthquake to raise awareness and donations.

Sharon and her siblings distributed their newsletter door-to-door and were so encouraged by initial donations that they began making presentations to local organizations to raise funds. Working with others, Sharon and her siblings collected $6,000 for the earthquake victims. Part of the money went to the Red Cross, and their parents took them to China to visit the earthquake site and deliver donations to five children who had been hit particularly hard by the earthquake. “They had lost their homes and lost family members and friends,” said Sharon. “Just seeing them in a situation like this made me depressed.” Later, when Hurricane Ike hit Galveston, they employed the same tactics and delivered a vanload of books, clothing and other items to two elementary schools there. They also began building a network of people to help them provide relief to disaster victims around the world (they now have 99 “team leaders” in four countries), and obtained grants to support their projects. In addition, Sharon writes a weekly blog to encourage young people to volunteer, and is working on a book with young Chinese victims of the earthquake. “One person may be small, but when we work together, we are a whole generation that will be a force for whatever we want to be,” said Sharon.

“Justin and Sharon represent young Americans who have a strong sense of community and who are dedicated to improving our neighborhoods, our nation and our world,” said John R. Strangfeld, chairman and CEO of Prudential Financial, Inc. “With great anticipation, we look forward to their future achievements as they continue to spread the spirit of community.”

More than 29,000 young people participated in the 2011 awards program last fall through schools, Girl Scout councils, county 4-H organizations, American Red Cross chapters, YMCAs and affiliates of the Points of Light Institute’s HandsOn Network. The top middle level and high school applicants in each state were selected in February, and were flown to Washington this week with their parents for four days of special recognition events.

In addition to Justin, the other National Honorees are:

Sarah Cronk, 18, of Bettendorf, Iowa, co-founded a cheerleading squad at her high school that includes students with disabilities, and then formed a nonprofit corporation that encourages teens across the country to start similar squads at their schools.

Rocco Fiorentino, 14, of Voorhees, N.J., is a dedicated advocate for children who are blind like him or visually impaired, striving over the past nine years to increase government funding for Braille services and educate others about the abilities of people with visual challenges.

Jeffrey Hanson, 17, of Overland Park, Kan., has generated more than $225,000 for various local and national charities over the past five years by selling and donating original paintings and other artistic creations, despite having a genetic condition that causes severe loss of vision.

Cassandra Lin, 13, of Westerly, R.I., launched a program that collects more than 36,000 gallons of waste cooking oil a year from 95 restaurants and thousands of households in nine towns in Rhode Island and Connecticut, and converts it into heating fuel for needy families.

Aimee Matheson, 18, of Clearfield, Utah, coordinated the building of a day-care and community center in Guatemala so that impoverished single mothers would have a safe and nurturing place for their children while they are at work.

Tyler Page, 14, of Brentwood, Calif., held a car wash hoping to rescue just one child from being sold into slavery in Ghana, but ended up sparking a kids’ fund-raising enterprise that has involved hundreds of young people and has generated more than $100,000 for a variety of children’s causes.

Rachel Wheeler, 11, of Lighthouse Point, Fla., launched a fund-raising campaign that has raised more than $162,000 to build a new 25-home village in Leogane, Haiti, near the epicenter of the earthquake that occurred in January 2010.

Glennita Williams, 14, of South Holland, Ill., has collected snacks and personal care items worth more than $14,000, including more than 600 pounds of Hostess Twinkies, for shipment to American troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past four years.

Rujul Zaparde, 16, of Plainsboro, N.J., co-founded a nonprofit organization that has motivated more than 450 students at 23 schools to raise funds that have been used to dig over 30 water wells in rural India.

The national selection committee that chose the ten National Honorees was chaired by Strangfeld of Prudential and included Jana Frieler, president of the National Association of Secondary School Principals; Michelle Nunn, president and CEO of the Points of Light & HandsOn Network; Marguerite Kondracke, president and CEO of the America’s Promise Alliance; Donald T. Floyd Jr., president and CEO of National 4-H Council; Pamela Farr, the American Red Cross’ national chair of volunteers; Jaclyn Libowitz, chief operating officer and chief of staff for Girl Scouts of the USA; Felix Rouse, vice president of resource development for the southeast region of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America; Elson Nash, associate director for project management at the Corporation for National and Community Service; Michael Cohen, president and CEO of Achieve, Inc.; and two 2010 Prudential Spirit of Community National Honorees: Shannon McNamara of Basking Ridge, N.J., and Benjamin Sater of Plano, Texas.

Conducted in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards were created 16 years ago by Prudential Financial to encourage youth volunteerism and to identify and reward young role models.

“The young women and men in America’s schools are nothing short of amazing, and nowhere is this more evident than amongst this year’s award recipients,” said NASSP President Jana Frieler. “They possess a keen intellect, servant hearts, capable leadership skills, and are filled with energy and ambition. NASSP and Prudential are honored to recognize them.”

More information about The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards and this year’s honorees can be found at http://spirit.prudential.com or www.nassp.org/spirit.

NASSP is the leading organization of and national voice for middle level and high school principals, assistant principals, and all school leaders from across the United States and more than 45 countries around the world. NASSP provides research-based professional development and resources, networking, and advocacy to build the capacity of middle level and high school leaders to continually improve student performance. Reflecting its longstanding commitment to student leadership development as well, NASSP administers the National Honor Society™, National Junior Honor Society®, National Elementary Honor Society®, and National Association of Student Councils®. For more information about NASSP, located in Reston, VA, visit www.nassp.org.

Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE: PRU), a financial services leader, has operations in the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Prudential’s diverse and talented employees are committed to helping individual and institutional customers grow and protect their wealth through a variety of products and services, including life insurance, annuities, retirement-related services, mutual funds, investment management, and real estate services. In the U.S., Prudential’s iconic Rock symbol has stood for strength, stability, expertise and innovation for more than a century. For more information, please visit http://www.news.prudential.com/

[Editors: full-color pictures of the Spirit of Community Awards program logo and medallions are available at spirit.prudential.com.]

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=6702187&lang=en