2023 Show Me Service Awards

Kansas City Region

Youth Volunteer of the Year

Collin McCarthy

Collin McCarthy is from the Kansas City Region. Collin is a part of Oak Park High School’s Key Club where they have spent their time in service battling food insecurity, delivering gifts, and creating opportunities for community members.   


Adult Volunteer of the Year

Vella Hughes

Vella Hughes is from the Kansas City Region. Vella is the head coach for Girls on the Run KC, serves with League of Women Voters, Kansas City, and has also served with Harvesters Kansas City’s Foodbank harvesting produce that is given to the local community.


Senior Volunteer of the Year

Ms. GG Owens

Ms. GG is from the Kansas City Region. Mrs. GG has spent time serving youth, The Housing Authority, and The Police Athletic League. They have also served with multiple organizations such as local food pantries and the local food bank to battle food insecurity in the community.


AmeriCorps Member of the Year

Allie Zenwirth

Allie Zenwirth is from the Kansas City Region. Allie is a Resource Development VISTA at the Missouri State Public Defender’s Holistic Defense Services Program. As a  Holistic Advocate VISTA, they step into Missouri communities and engage with local service providers to connect clients to essential resources and services.


Senior AmeriCorps Member of the Year

Carroll Makemson

Carroll Makemson is from the Kansas City Region. As a Member of the RSVP program, Carroll has helped to develop a recycling awareness program that has been very successful in sharing the allowable and appropriate way to recycle in our community. Carroll regularly contributes to the advisory council with innovative ways to recruit and creative programs to engage the volunteers.


Community of the Year

Wild Souls Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation

Wild Souls Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation is from the Kansas City Region, This organization humanely rescues and mends sick, injured, or orphaned wild animals by providing a 24/7 hotline and transport, along with around the clock medical care from a properly trained volunteer. They are the only licensed wildlife rehab facility in Eastern Jackson County. In 2022 they cared for 876 animals and had an 87% rehab and release rate.


Business of the Year

JE Dunn

JE Dunn is from the Kansas City Region. This organization has taken part in several companywide service opportunities including diaper packing, neighborhood beautification, building safe spaces for the unhoused community, and gardening opportunities.


North/ Central Region

Youth Volunteer of the Year

Bailey Brown

Bailey is from the North/Central Region. Bailey is the student director of their community soup kitchen. The soup kitchen, on average, assists in serving 60 – 100 individuals and families. This service opportunity helps bring the community together to share a meal.


Adult Volunteer of the Year

Wade Guffey

Wade Guffey is from the North/Central Region. Wade organizes community clean ups, hosts Father/Daughter dances, and coordinates Swap Meet opportunities with the hope of creating opportunities to better the community as a whole.


Senior Volunteer of the Year

Ann Hogue

Ann Hogue is from the North/ Central Region. Ann has recently been volunteering with Main Street Albany as the organization’s Design Committee chairperson. Ann accepted the task of envisioning a way to improve the community’s aging downtown courthouse square through art and design, with little to no buget.


AmeriCorps Member of the Year

Careen Barsby

Careen Barsby is from the North/ Central Region. Careen is serving in their third year with Literacy Volunteers of America and has signed up for a fourth year serving adults returning to society from incarceration. Careen works to get them reacquainted with society and into a half-way housing in town if necessary. They also assist in obtaining driver’s licenses, state IDs, and birth certificates, when necessary. Careen also provides employment literacy and financial literacy.


Senior AmeriCorps Member of the Year

Teri Zeiger

Teri Zeiger is from the North/Central Region. As a member of the RSVP program, Teri served with the local food pantry, thrift store, and a summer lunch program. These efforts assisted in providing the needed resources to carry out the Mission of Douglass Community Services.


Community of the Year

Catholic Charities: Fulton Community Sponsor Group

Catholic Charities: Fulton Community Sponsor Group is from the North/ Central Region. The Fulton Community Sponsor Group was the first of these co-sponsor groups to form, originating with the Fulton Rotary Club, and answer the call to serve. Co-sponsor groups typically work with clients during their first 180 days in the U.S. but the Fulton Community Sponsor Group members continue to pour forth their time, talent, and resources to support four refugee families.


Business of the Year

Steeplerock Holdings

Steeplerock Holdings is from our North/Central Region, The organization has provided free rent in an appropriate location for the literacy council to provide services for adults who need to learn to read and eventually pass their HiSet (formerly GED). This opportunity to work out of rent free space allows the members to serve many more clients and to house a testing site here in Lebanon. The Laclede County Community has over 17% of its adult population do not have a High school diploma or its equivalent. Over 24% of all adults in Laclede County are alliterate or illiterate: meaning that over 24% of adults driving down the road with you cannot read the road signs.

St. Louis Region

Youth Volunteer of the Year

Aditya Jain

Aditya is from our St. Louis Region, Robotics, Aditya Jain does his volunteer work primarily through the nonprofit organization that he co- founded – the Ladue Community STEM and Robotics Club. Aditya is the co-President of LCSRC. He also serves on The FIRST LEGO League Planning Team for Eastern Missouri.

Adult Volunteer of the Year

Neeta Lopes

Neeta is from our St. Louis Region, Neeta has been a key resource of our organization helping curate/conduct mindfulness activities, personal development, and global awareness within our communities be it through activities at local hospitals for stress relief and mental health, Yoga/meditation workshops for schools & colleges(Webster University),

Senior Volunteer of the Year

Raphael Morris

Raphael is from our St. Louis Region, under Raphael’s dedicated leadership, 22 of the 32 acres of Greenwood cemetery have been cleared of overgrowth and restored to a sustainable level. In the process, hundreds of headstones have been identified and archived with historical information, death certificates, and news clippings through a historical preservation process to help amplify the stories of those resting at Greenwood.

AmeriCorps Member of the Year

Kim Gifford

Kim is from our St. Louis Region, Serving with Missouri State Public Defender’s, In cooperation with her team, Kim has carried out legwork to compile over 3,000 statewide community resources available to assist MSPD clients in an easily navigable online portal. The creation and maintenance of this resource guide entails a continuous process of assessing needs, investigating resources, adding them to guides with contacts and essential eligibility information, and responding to feedback from clients and staff.


Senior AmeriCorps Member of the Year

Bang Do

Bang is from our St. Louis Region, as a member of the Lifewise STL Senior Companion Program, at 91 years young Bang Do 20 hours per week and helps other older adults in our Vietnamese community to stay connected and maintain their independence. Bang Do has encouraged others to volunteer and serves as a leader by sharing his experience and heart for service. Each week, he visits other older adults and provides encouragement and friendship to those who need it most.

Community of the Year

American Cricket Academy & Club

American Cricket Academy & Club is from our St. Louis Region, this organizations youth and families has combined sports in service. Battling food insecurity, connecting resources with organizations through a variety of drives and teaching the youth why it is important to have a balance of sport and giving back to their community. This organization is also a host of our the nation’s President’s Volunteer Service Award, which they have had multiple recipients.  

Business of the Year

Hollywood Beauty

Hollywood Beauty is from our St. Louis Region, they have provided volunteer services through various initiatives. These initiatives include the Hollywood Beautypreneur Initiative, which provides space for black entrepreneurs to sell their products in their stores at no cost to them. Additionally, they have supported local schools and education programs through donations of beauty supplies and accessories. This has been something they have done for years



South Region

Senior Volunteer of the Year

Sue Dyle

Sue is from our South Region, Sue has done so much in many areas of our county. She has been involved with GRO, the airport renovation, the county Fair, the historical society, and assisted in the beautification of the main intersection of their town.

AmeriCorps Member of the Year

Jacquie Howell

Jacquie is from our South Region, going into their fourth year this AmeriCorps member has served through the Purdy AmeriCorps Reading Coaches program. In this program she has provided one-on-one literacy intervention for students in grades kindergarten to fifth grade. Now that she is in her fourth year she has become a leader to the group of reading coaches and is always willing to share her experience and advice to the first year members.


Senior AmeriCorps Member of the Year

Robert Pankau

Robert is from our South Region, As a member of the RSVP program, Robert has worked with youth in foster care, 4-H youth, and community youth. He has taught woodworking, leather crafting, junk drawer robotics, gardening, and various other crafts and projects.


Business of the Year

Henderson Media LLC

Henderson Media LCC is from our South Region, Each year, this marketing agency provides both free and heavily discounted marketing services to nonprofits in Missouri. These services include: web design, website hosting, online donation assistance, corporate and event photography, video production, and social media consulting.


Special Awards

Lifetime Achievement Award

John Albright

John Albright

John Albright Award

Mendon Community

The Mendon community are the first recipients of the John Albright Award. June 2022 the town of Mendon and the surrounding community members responded to a tragic train derailment that occurred in town. This unexpected disaster was met with a caring and tactful response from this community as a whole and helped with the process of recovery.  


Certificate of Appreciation

Earth 2

Earth 2 is a AmeriCorps NCCC (National Civilian Community Corps) team from the Southwest Region based out of Denver, CO. This team is comprised of individuals from all over the country and they spent one of their service projects serving in West Plains, MO. The team served with West Plains Community Garden. The Corps Members hand-trenched a perimeter to hold Bermuda grass at bay; weeded, turned & mulched a community garden, provided a variety of activities for the local youth, made minor exterior repairs to a shelter and organized donated items.