/24-7PressRelease/ - SAN FRANCISCO, CA, May 10, 2008 — Two San Diego area teens are among five outstanding California teens named winners of a new award for community service that comes with a cash prize of $36,000. Amanda Haworth, 18, La Jolla, and Justin Sachs, 19, Carlsbad, were named winners of the Diller Teen Tikkun Olam award. The award was created to recognize teens who have initiated an exceptional social action project that helps to repair the world (tikkun olam). The awards will be presented at a luncheon in San Francisco on August 28.
Haworth, 18, a student at La Jolla High School, raised $12,000 to pay for a field trip for 410 San Diego high school juniors to visit the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles after she heard anti-Semitic and simply ignorant remarks about Jews and the Holocaust. The trip, which had been part of the school curriculum in the past, had been discontinued because of costs. It is now a mandatory field trip in her high school. The Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego nominated Haworth for the award.
Sachs, 18, a student at La Costa Canyon High School, developed the Tikkun Project, a synagogue-based social action program for teens. The two-pronged goal of the monthly program for teens at Temple Solel in Cardiff-by-the-Sea is to inspire them to take an active role in their community and to develop leadership skills. Among the group's actions are sending care packages to troops in Iraq; a 1000 Sandwich-a-Thon and canned food drive to feed the homeless; participating in a Walk for Autism Research; and a three-day house building trip to Tijuana, Mexico. They have raised funds for each effort and sell bagels, orange juice and coffee regularly at synagogue functions to support varying causes.
The other 2007 Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Award winners are Allison Hoffman, 18, Los Altos; Erich Sorger, 17, Beverly Hills; and Shira Shane, 19, Encino.
The awards are funded by the Helen Diller Family Foundation, a supporting foundation of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund of the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties.
YADA (Youth Alliance for Darfur) - Allison Hoffman
After initiating several social action programs at Castilleja School, her high school in Los Altos, Allison reached out to other Peninsula and San Francisco high schools to create a coalition of high school students working to end the genocide in Darfur, Sudan by raising awareness and fundraising to support humanitarian aid.
TAG (Teens Against Genocide) - Shira Shane
Shira organized 25 high schools (public and private) in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley to take action against human rights atrocities in general and particularly the genocide in Darfur. They organized a rally, among other things, and raised $10,000 to be used for the building of wells and medical clinics in Sudan.
Dollars for Dwaynes - Erich Sorger
Erich and several colleagues pick up furniture, appliances, clothes and other items left on the sidewalks in Westwood by students and destined to the city dump, and deliver them to National Council for Jewish Women's thrift shop where they are sold. As a result, he estimates $16,700 has been raised and donated by NCJW to groups that help the needy.
The preceding story was provided by Diller Teen Tikkun Olam
For more information about Justin Sachs International, for speaking arrangements, coaching, or consulting inquiries please contact Justin Sachs International at 888-357-4441 or visit http://www.justinsachsinternational.com.
# # #
Read more Press Releases from Justin Sachs:Other Similar Press Release Topics:
