• Name: Megan
• Age: 12
• Activity: Started her own club to volunteer for community-service projects
• Finalist award: A Nicki Fleming doll
• Nominated by: Her mother, Tamara

Just before my daughter Megan entered third grade, she started a community service club called Donation Station and invited ten girls to join her in quarterly community service projects. Since then, she has organized ten community service events, raising a total of more than $9,000.

Megan is grateful that her efforts inspire her peers to help the causes that mean so much to her.

In the past year, Megan organized several Donation Station events. First, club members raised money for the Fannie Mae Foundation Walkathon to Help the Homeless and the St. Jude’s Mathathon. Next, club members and their parents helped plant 50 trees for the Anacostia Watershed Society. Finally, the club made 60 bag lunches for a homeless advocacy group. Megan identified these volunteer opportunities, scheduled them, invited club members, and handled all of the logistics for each of these events, showing both her creativity and responsibility.

Megan’s sense of caring and compassion extends beyond her efforts with Donation Station. She is currently growing her hair for the second time to donate 12 inches to Locks of Love, an organization that collects hair to make wigs for financially-disadvantaged children with long-term hair loss. She also identified two friends with birthdays around the same time as hers and, in lieu of gifts, they solicited donations to adopt a five-year-old girl in Columbia through World Vision.

Each year, the sixth graders at Megan’s school are required to do a presentation on something that is truly meaningful to them. Megan chose to do her presentation on her community service efforts. So many students had questions on how they could get involved with the organizations she mentioned that the teachers asked her to prepare an e-mail listing all of the relevant contact information. Megan was grateful that her efforts might inspire her peers to help some of the causes that mean so much to her.