Colleen Bowles and Paige Martin were honored at the Governor’s Volunteer Stars Awards yesterday in Franklin, TN and recognized as 2015 Volunteers of the Year for Rutherford County.
Colleen, the adult honoree, and Paige, the youth honoree, both dedicated themselves to making Rutherford County a better place in 2015 which led to their nominations and subsequent honor. You can learn more about the recipients and their work below:
Colleen Bowles
Colleen has been the organizer of a group called Murfreesboro Volunteers since June of 2013.
Since then, Colleen has coordinated more than 188 volunteer events. In 2015 she cooked and served meals at The Journey home twice a month, served two meals for Way of Hope, helped build, paint, install and rehab houses with Rutherford County Habitat for Humanity and participated in Habitat’s “Cookin’ to Build” fundraiser as a cook team chair and as a volunteer.
Colleen also served food and refreshments at numerous dances hosted by the St. Clair Street Senior Center, helped with Greenhouse Ministries mobile food pantry and spent hours playing Bingo, talking, listening and visiting with residents at Northside Nursing Home.
You can find Colleen sorting and boxing food at Feed America First on the first Wednesday of every month and you can also find her volunteering regularly with other organizations. She serves as the Volunteer Chair for the three main fundraisers hosted by A Soldier’s Child Foundation and also volunteers at their monthly shopping and wrapping events.
As if that weren’t enough, the majority of her service in 2015 has been with the Rutherford County Cat Rescue where she traps, transports, bottle feeds and fosters 30 cats at the current time.
Colleen is a true blessing to all of the non-profits in Rutherford County as well as the community as a whole. Her dedication to service is unwavering and she is a true inspiration to all she comes in contact with.
Paige Martin
Paige has been volunteering with Read to Succeed for a year.
The thing that makes Paige stand out from other volunteers is her age and her desire to volunteer. She is only 11 years old and she wants to volunteer with Read To Succeed every chance she gets because she loves it, not because she need volunteer hours.
She helps with little things they need around the office. She organizes. She gets craft materials ready for Imagination Stations for Family Literacy. She helps them get supplies together and ready for their events such as Literacy Day and then she comes on the day of the event to help them there too.
She takes things home and works on them as well. She counted out hundreds of bookmarks that they needed for Reading in the Schools Day. When school is out, she is usually at Read To Succeed helping in any way that she can.
Paige impacts our community by the positive example she sets. She promotes Read To Succeed every chance she gets. She loves to read and she believes in the mission of Read To Succeed. She inspires others to volunteer and get involved in their community. She shows that you can contribute at any age and make a difference.
Paige is unique because she is so young but her desire to help others is so big. She not only volunteers with Read to Succeed every chance she gets, she also made quilts and donated them to Quilts for Kids over the summer.
Colleen and Paige were presented their awards by Miss Tennessee. The Governor’s Volunteer Stars Awards (GVSA) is an initiative from Volunteer Tennessee that seeks to recognize outstanding volunteers from each of Tennessee’s 95 counties. With the program now it its eighth year, participating counties conduct a call for nominations and recognize one outstanding youth and one outstanding adult volunteer.
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