2012 STAR Awards Youth Group Winner: Girls of Grace/I Am

Girls of Grace/I Am bring joy to Kalamazoo Community

By: Joe Stando | MLive Media Group

Volunteer groups serve the community in a number of ways. Some serve food or manage donations. Some build houses. Girls of Grace and I Am, two Kalamazoo-based service groups, dance.

“Girls of Grace/I Am are Christian dance ministries,” said Tina Jordan, coordinator of the groups. “It’s an arts ministry group in which elementary and middle school girls perform ballet and jazz dances in the community.”

Girls of Grace/I Am are this year’s winner of the STAR (Sharing Time and Resources) Award for best Youth Volunteer Group. The group has 13 members and meets at the YMCA of Greater Kalamazoo.

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2011 STAR Awards Youth Group Winner: Hackett Catholic Central Varsity Football Team

In a partnership with the Kalamazoo Gazette, we are pleased to feature their STAR Award winner stories. To view the original of this article, please click here to be taken to the Kalamazoo Gazette’s website.

By Chris Fusciardi | Kalamazoo Gazette

Photo by Jerry Campbell / Special to the Gazette

KALAMAZOO — Whether on the field or off, members of the Hackett Catholic Central varsity football team look for a challenge and try to come out on top.

As part of the inaugural Kalamazoo Valley Association Football Classic presented by PNC Bank, the 2010 addition of the Fighting Irish had the opportunity to win twice.

Hackett came up short on the scoreboard in its game against Parchment in August at Waldo Stadium.

Yet before the game started — and even before the players were in pads for summer workouts — members of the team turned their focus to winning the off-field competition of the Classic, where each of the 10 teams competed to see which could spend the most hours volunteering throughout the summer.

The Hackett team won with 664.5 combined hours of volunteer service, earning the school’s athletic department a $1,000 award from the Volunteer Center of Greater Kalamazoo and the team the 2011 STAR (Sharing Time and Resources) Award in the youth volunteer group category.

“At first I guess it was kind of about the competition … but then as we kept going more and more we felt like we were doing more and helping people,” said Nick Thayer, a senior wide receiver.

Most of the work involved manual labor, work for which the teenage football players were well suited. Despite the hot temperatures and juggling volunteer work with football conditioning, players readily took to their task.

“We had to do some hard work, but it was pretty much what we were looking for,” said linebacker Anthony Santoro. “It was pretty fun actually, especially for the seniors because it was our last year bonding with everyone.”

Volunteer hours were spread among 14 community organizations, with nearly 25 percent of them, or 167 hours, spent at the Peace House in Kalamazoo’s east-side neighborhood.

Another 126 hours were spent at the Comstock Community Center. “The team kind of enjoyed that one because of the whole physical labor thing that went along with it,” Eddie Martin, a senior running back/linebacker, said of the work that included pulling weeds and laying down mulch.

Peace House, a two-home community that provides kids with a safe, learning-oriented environment, provided plenty of work for the players, while allowing them to bond with the kids. “By us coming there, (the kids) were really happy when we were around and loved to play with us,” Martin said.

Players said the teamwork and camaraderie gained during their volunteer work helped once the season started. Though the team lost five of its nine games, the trying times on the field were easier to push through with the improved relationships built during the summer.

“The thing is, the kids that all work together, they stick together,” said coach Dob Drake. “These guys developed a lot of camaraderie, a lot of group concept. Hard work does that.”

Added Santoro: “The whole time we were together as a team, and if one of us was struggling, someone else would pick us up.”