Three students from Naperville District 203 and one from Hinsdale met with Mayor Steve Chirico in recognition of their Presidential Volunteer Service Awards.
“When I first contacted the mayor he was very happy to meet with the students and also give some encouraging words,” said Lihua Xia, mother of one of the award recipients. “It’s good for the community, want to contribute and do good things.”
The awards, consisting of a certificate, medal, and letter from the president, are given to citizens who devote a significant portion of their time to volunteering.
And Vicki Zou, Victor Ke, Taylor Xia, and Eric Chen did just that by traveling abroad with the IvyMax Foundation to help out in a Chinese village.
“The bulk of it is where me and the other students I worked with, we went to a village in the Ningxia Province, it’s a village that’s pretty impoverished and they don’t have a lot of resources, so we participated in a variety of service projects,” said Eric Chen, who received the Gold Presidential Volunteer Service Award.
They brought the volunteer spirit home from china too – they’ve started collecting old computers, refurbishing them, and giving them away to people who couldn’t afford them otherwise.
It takes over 250 hours of volunteering in one year to earn the Gold Presidential Volunteer Service Award.
Naperville News 17’s Blane Erwin reports.