The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards honors Sanford and Lisbon students with a $2,500 scholarship, silver medallion and invitation to virtual celebration for their work addressing the challenges of a changing world.
Newark, N.J., February 9, 2021 – Grace Davie, 16, of Sanford and Miranda Torrey, 12, of Lisbon today were named Maine’s top youth volunteers of 2021 by The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, America’s largest youth recognition program based exclusively on volunteer service.
As state Honorees, Grace and Miranda will each receive a $2,500 scholarship, a silver medallion and an invitation to the program’s virtual national recognition celebration in April, where 10 of the 102 State Honorees will be named America’s top youth volunteers of the year. Those 10 National Honorees will earn an additional $5,000 scholarship, a gold medallion, a crystal trophy for their nominating organization and a $5,000 grant for a nonprofit charitable organization of their choice.
The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, conducted annually by Prudential Financial in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), honors students in grades 5-12 for making meaningful contributions to their communities through volunteer service.
“We created the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards 26 years ago to highlight and support the work of young people taking on the challenges of a changing world – a mission that rings truer than ever given the events of last year,” said Charles Lowrey, Prudential’s chairman and CEO. “We are proud to celebrate the vision and determination of Spirit of Community’s Class of 2021, and all the ways they’re making their communities safer, healthier and more equitable places to live.”
These are Maine’s top youth volunteers of 2021:
High School State Honoree: Grace Davie
Nominated by Sanford High School
Grace, a junior at Sanford High School, serves as the student representative for the Sanford Backpack Program, which provides food to students from food-insecure households, and created an initiative that presented nearly 250 families with boxes of holiday treats and other items this past December. Grace got involved in the backpack program at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I realized that I had more time than I thought I had,” she said, “and began to think about how I was spending my time and was it meaningful?” When she learned that the pandemic was making the need for food-filled backpacks more critical than ever, Grace began volunteering every Thursday to get food out to students with limited access to reliable food sources.
By autumn, she had been appointed to the backpack program’s advisory board, and began wondering what she could do to make the Christmas season special for the program’s clients. “I wanted to come up with a way for them to experience joy in a holiday season that might present more obstacles then normal,” she said. Her conclusion: a “box of Joy” filled with holiday treats, basic, food items, paper goods, toiletries and other gifts. With the assistance of her mother and sister, Grace collected empty banana boxes from a supermarket, decorated the, and then asked sponsors in the community to fill them with 30 items from a list she provided. Although her initial goal was to assemble 100 boxes, Grace ended up brightening the holiday for more than 245 families with her “boxes of joy.”
This is a picture from today's food distribution where 90,000 pounds of food will be handed out.
Congratulations Grace! You make Sanford proud!!