2 state teens earn Prudential honor

— Tiffany Easter of Sheridan and Blake Abston of Little Rock have been named Arkansas’ 2013 Youth Volunteers of the Year by The Prudential Spirit of Community, a nationwide awards program.

The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, now in its 18th year, is conducted by Prudential Financial in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

Easter, 18, a senior who was nominated by Sheridan High School, raised money to purchase the freedom of approximately 60 women and children being held in “Trokosi” slavery in Ghana, West Africa, by selling specially inscribed bracelets and sunglasses, according to the awards program.

Easter became aware of the plight of the women through the Every Child Ministries that raises money to buy the women and their children from the local priests who hold them in bondage and physically abuse them. The women are sold by their families to the priests in compensation for a crime committed by a family member.

Motivated by the plight of the women, Easter and her sister ordered inscribed silicone bracelets and sunglasses and sold them at churches and at church camps. For every $200 raised, one slave and all of her children are released.

Blake, 13, was nominated for the volunteer award by Little Rock’s Pulaski Heights Middle School, where he is an eighth-grader.

He led a project to build two raised garden beds at an emergency shelter, plant fruits and vegetables in the beds and teach young residents of the shelter how to take care of them. Blake developed the garden plan for a Boy Scout project at Methodist Family Health, which houses a temporary emergency shelter for children and teens who don’t have parents or a safe place to live.

Blake raised the money, bought supplies and recruited Scouts, friends and shelter residents to build and plant the beds.

As state honorees, Easter and Blake each will receive $1,000, an engraved silver medallion and an all-expense paid trip in early May to Washington, D.C., where they will join the top two honorees from the other states and the District of Columbia for four days of national recognition events. During the trip, 10 students will be named America’s top youth volunteers of 2013.

Four additional Arkansas student volunteers were finalists for the state awards. The four are:

Tatiana Borecky, 17, of Fairfield Bay, a senior at Shirley High School, who volunteers at the Fairfield Bay Animal Shelter, as well as tutors younger students and assists in planning Red Ribbon Week anti-drug use activities.

Katherine Boyd, 17, a senior at Huntsville High School, who has helped to raise $7,800 as the team captain for an American Cancer Society Relay for Life team.

Robert Callahan, 16, of Rosie, a sophomore at Southside High School, helped open a food pantry at his school together with members of the Southside 4-H Club, of which Robert is currently president. The club raised $14,000 to start the pantry that now serves 300 people a month as well as provides food for schoolchildren to take home over the weekends.

Hailey Flatte, 18, of Fort Smith, a senior at Greenwood High School, created and carried out the “Distracted Driving Awareness Project” at her school to raise awareness about how 77 teenagers die each week in distracted driving accidents.

Arkansas, Pages 16 on 02/10/2013

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