Teens honored at Volunteer Stars Award program
Maya Thirkill, left, and Amelia Sullivan have been
named Hamilton County’s winners of the 2013 Governor’s Volunteer Stars Award.Maya Thirkill and Amelia Sullivan have been named Hamilton County winners of the 2013 Governor’s Volunteer Stars Award. The two were honored along with winners from other Tennessee counties at the sixth annual Governor’s Volunteer Stars Awards Program in Franklin, Tenn.
The program recognizes outstanding volunteers from each of Tennessee’s 95 counties. Nominations are submitted to each county’s mayor, who chooses one youth winner and one adult winner.
Maya, a 15-year-old student at Chattanooga Center for Creative Arts, has served as a member of the Girls Inc.’s Infant Mortality Public Awareness Campaign of Tennessee (IMPACT) for two years. IMPACT’s mission is to reduce the number of infant deaths in the state. Maya is a speaker who educates people through personal appearances and public service announcements. In addition, she networks with other local service agencies to strengthen partnerships and recruit team members. Her other projects include working to translate IMPACT’S public service announcements into Spanish and organizing a community health fair in one of Hamilton County’s high-risk neighborhoods.
Amelia Sullivan has worked in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at T.C. Thompson Children’s Hospital at Erlanger as a volunteer cuddler for 16 years. Though babies in this advanced unit are given highly specialized care, she is there to hold them and rock them when their parents can’t do it. She also assists nurses by diapering, feeding and bathing babies. She interviews volunteer applicants and provides their training.