Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 25, Number 6, 1 May 2008 — Top volunteer [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Top volunteer

KamehamehaSchools Kapālama senior Iacqueline Ho was named Hawai'i's top high school youth

volunteer for 2008, winning her $1,000, an engraved silver medallion and an all-expense paid trip to Washington, D.C., for a

May 3-6 trip gala awards ceremony at the Smithsonian's Nahonal Museum of Natural History. Ho has volunteered for the Special 01ympics for the past seven years. Her parents also have ties to the organization. Her mother is vice president of the loeal chapter and her father is a weightlifting eoaeh. The 17-year-old Ho credits them for inspiring her to get involved. "I've always been passionate about helping people with special needs and disabilities and helping them to accomplish things that others believe they are not eapahle of," Ho said in a news release. "Working

with Special 01ympics made me the type of person who stands up for others that are unable to stand up for themselves." Ten of the 102 honorees representing eaeh state and the District of Columbia will win top honors in the Prudential Spirit of Conununity Awards program sponsored by Prudential Financial in partnership with the Nahonal Association of Secondary School Principals. Honorees are from middle schools and high schools. The 13th annual awards program recognizes young people for outstanding acts of volunteerism. Megan Nakahara of Hawai'i Preparatory Academy gamered the state's middle-school honor. She played a key role in a monitoring project that collected data on endangered Hawaiian green sea turtles and raised awareness about its phght.

Jacqueline Ho