Highlands Today
Email
Print
LP Teen Earns Medal For Volunteer Service
Contributed photo
From left: Lynn Lyons, Lake Placid High School sophomore Kacie Royce and U.S. Congressman Ron Klein following an awards ceremony in Palm Beach Gardens where Royce received the Bronze Medal from the United States Congress for performing 100 hours of voluntary community service. Klein presented the medal to Royce. Lyons is Kacie's advisor for the voluntary program.
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: November 13, 2008
LAKE PLACID - Lake Placid High School sophomore Kacie Royce may be only 16, but she's got a big heart.
Over the last year, Royce made blankets for children hospitalized with cancer and volunteered in the gift shop at Florida Hospital Lake Placid. The total number of hours she racked up volunteering: 100 hours.
For her public service, she received the bronze medal from the U.S. Congress recently. U.S. Rep. Ron Klein presented Kacie with the award at a ceremony in Palm Beach Gardens.
Kacie's mother, Michelle, said, "Through her community service she has learned to give back to the community, which for a 16-year-old that is very important."
To earn the bronze medal, Kacie had to perform 100 hours of voluntary public service and 50 hours of personal development.
The blankets Kacie made were delivered by her grandmother to St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach.
After working in the hospital's gift shop, Kacie continues to volunteer at Florida Hospital Lake Placid on the medical/surgery floor where she interacts with the patients and helps with their meals.
"I've told her you can touch a lot of lives through this," Michelle said."It's a very good program.
"Of course it looks good on a college resume and it helps you get scholarships because colleges are really looking at community service and that type of thing now and not just grades."
The program is not very well known around here, she added.
Kacie learned about it from her uncle, who participated in the program in Palm Beach County. He was awarded a gold medal in Washington, D.C., and is now a student at the University of Florida.
"I knew it was a really good program," Kacie said, because she watched her uncle do it. "It was something I thought was really neat and interesting."
Kacie is working toward a silver medal and then will go for a gold medal. The silver and gold medals require 200 and 400 hours of voluntary service and 100 and 200 hours of personal development, respectively.
The Congressional Award is Congress' award for young Americans. It is non-partisan, voluntary and non-competitive.
The program is open to all 14- to 23-year-olds.
The Congressional Award Foundation was established as a private-public partnership, which receives no federal funding. All contributions received fund the ongoing efforts to make the Congressional Award a national opportunity.
Marc Valero can be reached at 386-5826 or mvalero@highlandstoday.com
Email
Print
ADVERTISEMENT
Advertisement
TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online Member Agreement | Privacy Statement | Work With Us
