Recent ‘Points of Light’ Include Marine Pilot, Schoolteachers

Following are the people and organizations that have most recently been named to receive President Clinton’s Daily Points of Light Award.

The Points of Light Foundation, a Washington charity, assists the President in making the choices and carrying out the award program. More information about the award winners and the program is available at the foundation’s World-Wide Web site, http://pointsoflight.org, or by contacting the foundation at 1400 I Street, N.W., Suite 800, Washington 20005; (202) 729-8184.

The recipients:

1447. Mary Lou Linton, Shorewood, Ill., an active volunteer at many Milwaukee non-profit organizations that provide advocacy and social services for children and poor families.

1448. The Southern California Housing Development Corporation, Rancho Cucamonga, which helped the residents of Renaissance Village, in Rialto, Cal., improve their neighborhood by creating additional low-cost housing units, starting monthly meetings, and bringing in trained volunteers to tutor local children in reading and English as a second language.

1449. The Children’s Reading Program of Literacy Volunteers, Martinsville, Va., which sends volunteers to the local hospital’s emergency room to read to children there and to give each child a book.

1450. Toliver and Valerie Grier, Newport News, Va., a couple who have served for years in disaster-relief efforts and in disaster-preparedness training at the Hampton Roads Chapter of the American Red Cross.

1451. Julie Kennedy, Washington, who founded D.C. Scores — soon to be renamed America Scores — a group of after-school programs for Washington schoolchildren, including soccer teams, creative-writing workshops, and outreach activities to involve parents, teachers, and coaches in the children’s activities.

1452. Edward Bradley, Whiting, N.J., a retired teacher and athletics director who founded the “Stay Way” program to decrease the number of students who drop out of school and who began the “No-Shows for Charity Shows” program through the New Jersey Fitness and Sports Foundation, which encourages people to donate tickets they won’t be using so that children can attend special events.

1453. Jerry Dickens, Cincinnati, a volunteer for the American Red Cross who has helped people affected by natural disasters and disease outbreaks around the country and who teaches first-aid classes.

1454. The Making a Difference Foundation, Virginia Beach, Va., which operates in Virginia and North Carolina and is devoted to helping young people prepare for college or the work force by offering tutoring, training, and assistance with college and job applications.

1455. Lewie Amick, Greenwood, S.C., a retired Marine aviator who, since 1997, has donated more than 5,000 hours to MEG’s House, the Shelter for Abused Women, procuring the materials needed to renovate a transitional apartment for clients and the shelter’s new permanent residence.

1456. David Fyhr, Kingsville, Md., a volunteer for many groups, including Health Care for the Homeless, where he has solicited pharmaceutical donations, and St. Vincent’s Children’s Home, where he organizes his co-workers at Bethlehem Steel in an annual day of cleaning, renovations, and yard work.

1457. Steven LoDestro, Brooklyn, N.Y., who recruited his co-workers at State Farm Insurance to throw parties and help with large cleaning activities at the Kevin Keating Residence, a home for young men who are developmentally disabled.

1458. Children’s Advocacy Network, Pocatello, Idaho, which coordinates the town’s many programs for children in order to prevent duplication of services; its projects include a program to prevent child abuse, a literacy program, and the building of a skateboard facility.

1459. Community Suicide Prevention Committee, Pierre, S.D., which was organized after several local young people committed suicide; it uses health professionals, parents, and students to provide educational, medical, and psychological services, and provides a “safe room” at a hospital for people threatening suicide, as an alternative to the usual procedure of sending them to jail.

1460. Boys Hope/Girls Hope Volunteer Corps, Bridgetown, Mo., a national program through which recent college graduates spend a year as full-time mentors, tutors, and caregivers for children whose parents can no longer take care of them.

1461. Operation Care, Wilson, N.C., an all-volunteer group that was formed through a merger of two organizations and provides needy families with donated clothing, food, and household items and with emergency funds for medication, rent payments, and utility bills.

1462. Angela Bronson, North Hills, Cal., a third-grade teacher at a Los Angeles school who brings her students — the “Mitzvah Munchkins” — to the Jewish Home for the Aging to interact with its elderly residents, allowing both groups to learn about each other.