April 26, 2007

Spotlight on community service

For the third consecutive year, Northwestern has joined forces with the Evanston Community Foundation and Evanston Township High School (ETHS) to select volunteers to be recognized as Outstanding Volunteers of the Year.

The 15 recipients — five from each of the collaborating institutions — were honored at the annual Volunteer Recognition Reception April 19 at Northwestern.

The honorees were Amelia Monar, Betony Wenzel, My Linh Huynh, Leah Barnes and Andrea Poster of ETHS; Betsy Uzzell, Fortino Leon, Robert Reece, Lorenzo Jacobs and Mary Moring of the community; and Ying Zhu Chin, Elizabeth Zyer, Rebecca Donaldson, James Kath and Cassandra Chen of Northwestern. Special recognition went to Alice Kreiman.

“This program started because we wanted to find a way to showcase the great volunteer work that is done in our community and thank our volunteers for it,” said Natalie Furlett, student community service coordinator at Northwestern’s Center for Student Involvement.

Each winter a call for nominations is sent out to all the nonprofit groups in Evanston, to various departments at Northwestern and to teachers at ETHS. A committee comprised of Northwestern students, teachers and community leaders select the recipients.

More nominations were received this year than in previous years.

“We had a huge response from the Evanston community, which is really exciting,” said Furlett.