LakewoodAlive Honors Volunteers With Annual Appreciation Breakfast

Jarrell McAlister was presented with the 2017 Laskey Service Award.

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As the saying goes, it takes a village. This is certainly true in the case of LakewoodAlive, a volunteer-driven nonprofit organization that relies heavily on community members to help fulfill its mission to foster and sustain vibrant neighborhoods.

LakewoodAlive hosted its Annual Volunteer Appreciation Breakfast on Friday morning, January 19, in the Women’s Pavilion at Lakewood Park. The event, attended by nearly 75 community members, featured coffee, waffles and stories of remarkable volunteerism. LakewoodAlive recognized the nearly 750 volunteers who, in 2017, contributed their time and talents to supporting the nonprofit community development organization and to helping improve quality of life in Lakewood.

Volunteer Champion Awards were bestowed upon the following individuals for their outstanding service to LakewoodAlive:

Outgoing LakewoodAlive Board Member

• David Stein

Housing Outreach Program

• Michael Bentley
• Cross Point Church
  (accepted by Todd Calaway)
• Great Lakes Brewery Company
  (accepted by Katherine Downs)
• Lakewood New Life Church
  (accepted by Eric & Ellen Stephens)
• Roger Urbanek

Downtown Lakewood

• Paula Reed
• Tammy Sibert

LakewoodAlive Development Committee

• Missy Toms

LakewoodAlive Marketing Committee

• Anson Hall

Lakewood Summer Meltdown

• Sylvio Mecone

A special award is bestowed each year to a volunteer who demonstrates uniquely exceptional commitment to LakewoodAlive. The Laskey Service Award was named for Tim Laskey, a founding member of LakewoodAlive. This year’s Laskey Service Award recipient is Jarrell McAlister.

Jarrell, a LakewoodAlive board member, has proven instrumental to furthering LakewoodAlive’s mission in various ways. He recently spearheaded the process of helping LakewoodAlive to construct a new strategic plan that will help guide the organization for the next three years. In addition to serving on the Marketing Committee, Jarrell volunteers his time at nearly every LakewoodAlive event, assisting with everything from setup to execution to teardown. He also helped lead a “Why I Love Lakewood” campaign that resulted in an attractive new window display at the historic Curtis Block building in Downtown Lakewood.

As a special closing to this year’s Volunteer Appreciation Breakfast, members of the “A Team” – an all-star squad of volunteers that tackle challenging projects on behalf of LakewoodAlive’s Housing Outreach Program – were presented with custom t-shirts designed by LakewoodAlive board member Jim “JP” Ptacek.

“We can’t begin to express our gratitude for the incredible outpouring of support we receive from our family of dedicated volunteers,” said Ian Andrews, Executive Director for LakewoodAlive.  “Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all you do for Lakewood, and for helping us fulfill our mission to foster and sustain vibrant neighborhoods.”

To learn more about how you can get involved with LakewoodAlive, please visit LakewoodAlive.org/Volunteer.