National Charity League honors 19 girls for service

The Green Valley chapter of the National Charity League honored 19 high school girls for their volunteer service with Henderson charitable and nonprofit organizations at the annual Senior Presentation in June. All of the girls are 2007 high school graduates who participated in the mother/daughter service organization for six years.

The Charity League's class of 2007, which had accumulated more than 7,000 volunteer hours since joining the league as seventh-graders, volunteered at several community organizations including Polycystic Kidney Disease Foundation, Henderson Allied Community Advocates, Marian Residence, Kids to Kids, Lullaby Connection and Henderson Senior Center.

"I enjoyed the meetings and doing charity work with friends," said Alyssa DeSangro, a graduate of Coronado High School. "It incorporates something social with doing something good for other people."

Carolyn Linck, also a graduate of Coronado, believes the league is special because the girls get to spend time volunteering with their mothers in addition to making new friends.

Linck spent time volunteering in the R.E.D. Rose community outreach program offered through the campuses of St. Rose Dominican Hospitals. The program gives assistance to uninsured or underinsured men and women under 49 with breast cancer.

"We would do grocery shopping, help around the house and make them dinner," said Linck, who enjoyed her involvement with the program because it gave the girls the opportunity "to get to know the people you were helping."

Both Linck and DeSangro plan on continuing to be active in volunteer work at their new universities. Linck will be attending Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, Calif., and DeSangro will be attending the University of Arizona.

The 2007 Charity League graduates are Laurie Bittle, Natalie Brown, Katie Carlson, DeSangro, Christina DuBois, Jordyn Lauten, Linck, Kelly Mason, Cristina McGahen, Kristen Meath and Lauren Simons of Coronado High School; Alexandra Derentz of Sierra Vista High School; Katie Garlock, Amanda McDougall and Morgan Whitehead of Green Valley High School; Brittany Bridges, Emily Piorkowski and Erin Piorkowski of Bishop Gorman High School; and Lauren Lebby of Las Vegas Academy of International Studies, Visual and Performing Arts.

In other youth news:

* Two Clark County high school graduates received Excellence in Theatre Performance Scholarships from the International Thespian Society, a division of the Educational Theatre Association. Tyler Nelson, a graduate of Del Sol High School, received a $1,400 scholarship and Liberty High School graduate Zairah Lopez-Montano received a $1,000 scholarship.

If you know of a worthy candidate for this column, mail information to Youth Spotlight, Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125-0070, or send faxes to 383-4676.