Congratulations To The 2023 Gift Of The Heart Scholarship Recipients!

Clearview High School

Piya Patel

Piya began working as a volunteer for ENGin, a nonprofit that specialized in connecting fluent English speakers and learning Ukrainian students together. Throughout her time there, Piya has made a lot of incredible and unique friends. One of her fondest memories is when Katrusya, her first student and best friend, told her that their conversations had a significant impact on her life, particularly during the current Ukrainian-Russian War; she said the discussions not only helped her in English, but also comforted her as her motherland was being invaded. Piya’s greatest achievement throughout the entire experience has been assisting these students in achieving the highest level of success possible and providing them opportunities to learn a foreign language. In ENGin, she gained leadership, confidence, determination, empathy and most importantly, friends!

Vincent Fox

Community service to Vincent has an entirely different meaning centering around the ideology best affirmed by Mahatma Gandhi: “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” Vincent first discovered his love for giving back when he served as a Teen Lead for Vacation Bible School in the eighth grade. He immediately felt rewarded after directly experiencing the effects of his leadership that created happiness in the children. Vincent has over 150 hours of meaningful community service and even promotes the participation of fundraising and giving back as his school’s NHS Treasurer. This past year Vincent was recognized by STEM and was awarded 1st place for NJ’s Most Active Individual for Community Service. Vincent is truly passionate about impactfully serving his community.

Delsea High School

Allison Reber

Throughout her life, Allison has been involved in many community and school programs that have allowed her to serve others. Allison has helped her church’s food pantry by not only collecting food but putting together packages and distributing them to people in the community. She has also helped with car washes, fall fests and the children’s nursery at church and taught a children’s class on Sunday mornings. Allison got involved in YoungLife and is a member of Interact, a club that teaches students about world issues. Interact has done trunk-r-treats, Thanksgiving dinners, food drives, Christmas toy drives and Mother’s Day baskets collections to help the community. Allison helps with lessons in school to students about topics like drugs, alcohol, suicide and other pressing issues.

Ryan Battle

Ryan’s time spent giving out food to the homeless on Thanksgiving morning three years ago really opened his eyes to what life is really like and how lucky he truly is. Not only did Ryan serve food to the people, but he found himself sitting and talking to those who were by themselves. He got the chance to hear heartwarming (and some sad) stories of strangers’ lives. As short as that morning was, Ryan would like to think that he impacted some of those people’s lives that day as equally as they impacted his. Ryan made a promise to himself to continue to give back on Thanksgiving mornings and he has not missed one yet.

Deptford High School

Caitlin Wallis

Caitlin is an Eagle Scout with Troop 7151 of Woodbury. Her Eagle Scout project was to build a 24 ft by 48 ft pavilion in honor of 911. Caitlin spent over two hundred hours between the planning and the actual building. It afforded her the opportunity to demonstrate leadership by helping coordinate the helpers, and by scheduling the times needed for everyone there. What she learned is that leadership is not just barking orders and getting people to listen, but also listening to other people’s ideas. Over the years Caitlin has done hundreds of service hours, but this was the most challenging as well as the most rewarding project. Caitlin was honored to have had the privilege to give the Woodbury Heights community its much desired 911 Pavilion.

Ethan Tamayo

Ethan started volunteering for the Church of the Holy Family seven years ago as an altar server. His serving schedule taught him that he could accomplish tasks even when he felt lazy by pushing himself and improving his confidence. Ethan worked with people from ages seven to sixteen, and used his experience to help teach them what to do throughout the Mass. He adapted his way of teaching to each age so that everyone could understand better. Teaching people of all different ages taught Ethan to be more patient and understanding, and it improved everyone’s mindsets. Ethan’s community service improved the church’s mass, and it made him a better leader overall.

Announcements Coming Soon!

Announcements Coming Soon!