Good Success

The Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes seeks nominations for its 2010 awards. The Barron Prize honors young people between the ages of 8 and 18 who have made a significant positive difference to people and our planet.

Each year, ten national winners each receive $2,500 to support their service work or higher education.

“Each year, the Barron Prize honors twenty-five winners nationwide. Half of the winners have focused on helping their communities and fellow beings; half have focused on protecting the health and sustainability of the environment.

These young people reflect the great diversity of America. They are female and male, urban and rural, and from many backgrounds. Examples are Michaella, who organized a rodeo for disabled kids; Carter, who led the effort to conserve a local river; Ashley, who created a scholarship fund for African girls; Kyle, who organized a reading mentorship program; Joying, who cleaned up South Carolina’s beaches; Ryan, who helped provide clean drinking water to more than 70 African villages; and Barbara, who created a successful oil recycling project in Texas.

The goal of the Barron Prize is to celebrate such heroic young people—and to inspire others to do their part. Like the woman for whom the prize was named—my mother, Gloria Barron—these young people demonstrate the power of one person to make a difference to the world.”

T.A. Barron
Prize Founder

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CHICAGO, IL – Courtney Hough (La Porte, Indiana) and Kat Gillian (Morris, Alabama) each won $500 U.S. savings bonds in a national acronym and essay contest. This sixth annual contest, judged by an independent panel of professional writers, was created by self-esteem and character development nonprofit, Hey U G L Y – Unique Gifted Lovable You and sponsored by Dean Klassman, of Klassman Financial, one of the nation’s leading financial advisors.

Hough won first place in a national contest asking students nine to19 to create positive acronyms for the words Dork, Loser, Hate, Racism, or Stupid. Hough hears the word racism in a different way because this 16-year-old student interprets ‘racism’ as: Remove All Color, I’m Simply Me. The La Porte, Indiana girl hopes her creative acronym helps others to understand that it’s not the color of you skin that matters, it’s the size of your heart.

Source: BigNewsBiz

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NEW YORK, Oct. 29 /PRNewswire/ — Students from New York City public school PS 165 assisted Procter & Gamble’s Bounty brand along with Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation co-founder and entertainment mogul Russell Simmons, hip-hop pioneer Joseph “Rev. Run” Simmons, American fashion designer and humanitarian Tory Burch, and artist Amanda Williams in unveiling the completed Building Bounty-ful Bridges 33-foot painted mural.  The mural is a compilation of all the completed pieces of the traveling arts program that toured the nation sponsored by Bounty in partnership with Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation.

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The Arc of the United States in Silver Spring, Maryland, has announced a $3 million grant from the Wal-Mart Foundation to establish a nationwide initiative designed to improve outcomes for youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities as they transition from school to adult life.

The Wal-Mart Foundation School-To-Community Transition Project will expand the Arc’s efforts to improve the quality of transition planning and services by identifying successful programs that can be replicated and by supporting the work of some fifty local Arc chapters already operating promising school-to-community transition programs. The goal of the project is to achieve greater inclusion and involvement of youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities in independent living, employment, post-secondary education or vocational training, and community, social, and civic affairs.

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The Walmart Foundation.

WASHINGTON, June 25 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The 18-year-old owner of a student tutoring service in south Florida, Jay Shechtman of Weston, has been named the 2009 “Young Entrepreneur of the Year” by the National Federation of Independent Business and Visa Inc. Mr. Shechtman was chosen for this top honor from more than 6,000 nationwide candidates. In recognition of his achievements, Mr. Shechtman has been awarded a $10,000 educational scholarship to help defray the cost of his tuition at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

Five additional students were named NFIB/Visa Inc. National Young Entrepreneur Award winners and will each receive a $5,000 educational scholarship. All six winners are being honored today at a special luncheon held at NFIB in Washington, D.C.

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Source:  National Federation of Independent Business and Visa Inc.

PEACHTREE CORNERS, (May 21, 2009) – Mark Victor Hansen, co-founder of the highly acclaimed “Chicken for the Soup Soul” series and Atlanta youth entrepreneur Chelsea Eubank spoke to senior high students at Wesleyan School last week. Mr. Hansen was there to speak to the youth about the importance of their generation’s role in the future of America. He also talked about his new book, The Richest Kids in America, in which he uses a broad definition to the word “rich”. Chelsea is featured as one of the youth in this book and is featured for being rich in “spirit and “faith

During his presentation, Mr. Hansen talked about his own childhood and that both of his parents were illiterate. He also was considered a slow learner in his early years. This motivated him to not only learn to read, but to go on to become a best-selling author. In his book he talks about the challenges each of these teen entrepreneurs featured in the book faced and how they overcame them to become successful.

Chelsea Eubank has overcome a lot in her twenty-one years. Chelsea grew up with a learning disability and now attends an LD college in Florida. At age 17, Chelsea lost five members of her family-her uncle, both of her grandmothers, her grandfather and even her father-all within just two years. Chelsea had in front of her two paths to take –one would bring her success and the other many heartaches and failures. She chose to be positive and started her own clothing company. Her gift of creativity and love of clothing allowed her to find a niche in the Christian clothing market and she has become very successful. Her company, Faithful Fish (www.faithfulfish.com) is donates a portion of their profits to charity and donates a onesie to a baby in need for each shirt that is ordered.

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