Patrick Briscoe Honored As Top Volunteer In National Awards Program

Patrick Briscoe, 13, of Newtown and Sanam Rastegar, 17, of Weston and were named on February 7 as Connecticut’s top two youth volunteers for 2012 by The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, a nationwide program honoring young people for outstanding acts of volunteerism.

Patrick, an eighth grader at St Rose School, conducted a penny collection drive that raised more than $1,200 to purchase two cobblestones and a granite paver on behalf of his hometown at the National 9/11 Memorial in New York City.

To solicit donations for his Forget Me Not Pennies 9/11 Memorial Fund, Patrick decorated more than 20 coffee tins and sought permission to display them from Mary Maloney, the principal of St Rose School; Janet Woycik, director of C.H. Booth Library; and local business owners. Every week, he emptied the tins and counted the pennies.

Sanam was nominated by Hopkins School in New Haven, and Patrick was nominated by St Rose School. The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, now in its 17th year, is conducted by Prudential Financial in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP).

Sanam, a senior at Hopkins School, initiated an annual jump-roping fundraiser at her school that has generated more than $100,000 for Paul Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for children with serious diseases.

As State Honorees, Patrick and Sanam each will receive $1,000, an engraved silver medallion, and an all-expense-paid trip in May to Washington, D.C., where they will join the top two honorees from each of the other states and the District of Columbia for several days of national recognition events. Ten of them will be named America’s top youth volunteers for 2012 at that time. In addition, ten of them — five middle school and five high school students — will be named National Honorees on May 7. These honorees will receive additional $5,000 awards, gold medallions, crystal trophies, and $5,000 grants from The Prudential Foundation for nonprofit charitable organizations of their choice.

The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards represents the United States’ largest youth recognition program based solely on volunteer service. More than 5,000 local candidates were reviewed by an independent judging panel, which selected state honorees and distinguished finalists based on criteria including personal initiative, creativity, effort, impact and personal growth.

Since the program began in 1995, more than 100,000 young volunteers nationwide have been honored by The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards at the local, state, or national level.