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HomeNewsMontgomery County Volunteer Stars Award Recipients Named

Montgomery County Volunteer Stars Award Recipients Named

Montgomery County TennesseeMontgomery County, TN – Congratulations to Mallory Fundora, David Wesner and Serenity House Women’s Shelter for being selected the Montgomery County recipients for the 2015 Governor’s Volunteer Stars Awards.

Fundora, the Youth Award recipient, is a child with a passion and vision like no other. At age 11 Mallory saw an issue, the many needs of the children of Uganda, and decided to create her own non-profit organization, Project Yesu, and focus on helping those children.

The first need she identified was children wanted education, but the costs were prohibitive.

So she began a sponsorship program, matching donors with children so they could attend school with no fees. This would help those children break the cycle of poverty through education. Mallory also saw that these children were hungry and she worked to find an answer.

She then began a feeding program that now provides a nutritious breakfast each weekday to 350 children before school. Mallory knows that there are more issues around the world and challenges her peers to make a difference.

Mallory, now age 15, continues to make a difference in the lives she touches and is the epitome of the phrase, “You are never too young to make a difference.” Montgomery County is very proud of Mallory and the difference she is making in the lives of children around the world!

Wesner, the Adult Award recipient, is a native of Clarksville and a Vietnam Veteran. Wesner has always been very active in his community, working as a professor at Austin Peay State University, while also working as an associate pastor at Faith Outreach Church.

Throughout the years, any spare time he had, he used it to serve others. He served in a ministry for soldiers at Fort Campbell, taught life skills classes at Safe Harbor, a faith-based support program in Clarksville, he served as Chaplain of the Fort Campbell football team, but most recently he has been serving as the Chaplain for the Veterans Treatment Court.

He was asked to serve and saw this as another opportunity to serve the Veterans of Clarksville. While still serving an a minister at Faith Outreach, Chaplain at Veterans Treatment Court, he still finds time to conduct marriage enrichment classes and a class for teens about faith. Wesner has a heart of service and that is evident through his generous donation of time and leadership in so many facets of our community. Montgomery County is fortunate for David Wesner to call it home!

Serenity House Women’s Shelter, the Non-Profit recipient, provides transitional housing and supporting services for homeless mothers and their children. Mothers and children are able to stay in a safe, caring environment while they work to achieve independent living.

Some of the programs offered at Serenity House Women’s Shelter include financial assistance to prevent eviction or to obtain permanent housing, emergency shelter services, counseling, community resource referrals, clothing and food. Since its inception, Serenity House has impacted over 400 people and this year alone, assisted 70 families with services.

Serenity House also holds an annual clothing drive, called Operation Warm Up, to gather warm clothing for the area homeless population. We greatly appreciate the services offered to the needy citizens of Montgomery County and to the continued difference made by Serenity House Women’s Shelter!

These well-deserved Montgomery County representatives will be honored with proclamations from Montgomery County Mayor Jim Durrett at the March 14th County Commission meeting.

Volunteer Tennessee coordinates the Governor’s Volunteer Stars Awards at the state level. Volunteer Tennessee is the 25 member bipartisan citizen board appointed by the Governor to oversee AmeriCorps and service-learning programs and to advance volunteerism and citizen service to solve community problems in the Volunteer State.

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