Today, Senator Coons met with the Delaware recipients of the Jefferson Award for outstanding service by a high school. The Jefferson Award, a national recognition honoring community and public service, went to Wilmington’s Padua Academy, a Catholic school for girls, this year. Chris met with students, their families, and faculty of Padua Academy today to celebrate this honor.
Between April 2010 and March 2011, students at Padua Academy have performed more than 30,000 hours of community service projects. Padua’s faculty and staff have additionally volunteered more than 15,000 hours. According to Jefferson Award calculations, this contribution of time for community service is worth more than one million dollars to local, national, and international humanitarian agencies and schools.
The Jefferson Awards for Public Service were created to inspire volunteerism and community service across America by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Senator Robert Taft, Jr., and Sam Beard. The awards are presented on two levels, nationally and locally. In 2006, the Jefferson Awards launched a national youth leadership program. This program is active in more than 325 high schools in communities across the United States and stresses building life-long habits of service, leadership, and ethics while encouraging youth volunteerism.