Awards, Oct 26, 2006

The following awards have been presented for work in advocacy, fund raising, nonprofit leadership, philanthropy, and other areas:

Human services. The Caring Institute (Washington) has announced the recipients of its 2006 National Caring Awards, which honor people who have worked to improve the lives of others. This year, the institute recognized six people age 18 and younger and five adults. The adult winners:

— Oral Lee Brown, founder of the Oral Lee Brown Foundation (Oakland, Calif.), who has paid the college tuition of dozens of students who graduated from one of Oakland’s poorest high schools.

— Ben Carson, a pediatric brain surgeon in Baltimore, who created a Medical Endowment Fund to sponsor health care for needy patients and established a scholarship fund for local top students in grades 4 through 12.

— Eleanor Josaitis, co-founder of Focus: HOPE (Detroit), an organization that fights racial injustice, operates food programs for women, children, and older people, and provides education and training programs in basic skills, engineering, information technology, and manufacturing.

— Albert Lexie, of Pittsburgh, who shines shoes at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and donates all his tips to the Children’s Free Care Fund, which provides medical care to children, regardless of their families’ ability to pay.

— Cal Ripken Jr., a retired baseball player with the Baltimore Orioles, who supports programs that promote literacy, care for patients with thyroid disorders, and conduct research on Lou Gehrig’s disease. He also founded the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation (Baltimore), named for his father, which establishes baseball and softball programs for low-income youths, refurbishes fields, and provides sports equipment to schools.

The young-adult winners:

— Brittany and Robbie Bergquist, 15 and 14, of Norwell, Mass., who founded Cell Phones for Soldiers, which has raised more than $1-million to provide calling cards to U.S. soldiers who are stationed in the Middle East, to allow them to call their families.

— Daniel Kent, 17, of Carmel, Ind., who founded a group now known as the Net Literacy Corporation, which has established computer labs in 70 retirement facilities and taught 11,000 older people how to use the Internet.

— Clayton Lillard, 17, of San Antonio, who, with a band of volunteer helpers, has refurbished used bicycles for more than 800 needy children.

— Jena Sims, 17, of Winder, Ga., a former beauty-pageant contestant who has raised more than $69,000 for the American Cancer Society, in Atlanta.

— Mattie Stepanek, of Rockville, Md., who wrote HeartSongs, a book of poetry about living with muscular dystrophy. He died in June 2004, at the age of 13.

Internet. The ePhilanthropy Foundation, a Washington organization that promotes the ethical use of the Internet in fund raising, has announced the winners of its 2006 International ePhilanthropy Awards, which were presented in four categories. Following are the winners, which each received $500 to donate to a charity of their choice:

— Best Integrated Online and Offline ePhilanthropy Campaign: Greenpeace International (Amsterdam) for its No Whaling Virtual March last year. Through its Web site (http://www.greenpeace.org), more than 60,000 people from 123 countries protested whale-hunting policies by submitting photos of themselves, which were then projected in a plaza near the meeting site of the International Whaling Commission, held in Ulsan, South Korea.

— Best Online Donations/Fund-Raising Campaign: Network for Good (Bethesda, Md.) for its holiday fund-raising initiative, which raised more than $7-million for 8,000 nonprofit organizations in five weeks last year through its Web site (http://www.networkforgood.org).

— Best Special Event Registration and/or Membership Campaign: Kids Help Phone (Toronto), whose Web site (http:// www.kidshelpphone.ca) promoted its annual Bell Walk and raised more than $1-million last year to provide bilingual, anonymous phone counseling and referrals for children and youths.

— Best Community-Building/Volunteerism and/or Activism Campaign: VolunteerXChange.com (Sydney, Australia) for connecting volunteers who offer professional services, skills, and advice with nonprofit organizations worldwide.

In addition, the foundation presented its inaugural Global People’s Choice Award to the African Well Fund (Brentwood, Tenn.), a group formed by fans of the rock band U2 to raise money to help build wells throughout Africa in order to provide clean water to communities there.

Nonprofit leadership. The Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation (Washington) has presented its inaugural Exponent Awards, which honors midcareer leaders of the foundation’s grantees. Following are the winners, whose organizations will each receive a $100,000 cash prize over two years for leadership development:

— Rhonda Buckley, executive director, Patricia M. Sitar Center for the Arts (Washington)

— Betty Jo Gaines, executive director, Bright Beginnings (Washington)

— Jayne Park, executive director, Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center (Washington)

— Kerrie Wilson, chief executive officer, Reston Interfaith (Va.)

— Jim Knight, executive director, Jubilee Housing (Washington)