Each year, the Junior League of Greenwich designates funds to be awarded to a local female high school student through its Community Service Award. The award of $1,000 is intended to recognize a high school student who exemplifies the mission of the Junior League of Greenwich by demonstrating sustained commitment to community service. The recipient must be someone whose volunteer activities demonstrate initiative and show significant and sustained commitment to community service and leadership.
The Junior League of Greenwich presented this year’s Community Service Award to Isabel Kalb, a junior at Greenwich Academy. Isabel has been involved in the community as a volunteer assistant preschool teacher, Vice-Chair of the First Selectman’s Youth Commission of Greenwich, an organizer of the first Greenwich Student Diversity Leadership Conference, and a Greenwich Academy Community Service Board grade representative. But most impressive was her work with the First Selectman’s Youth Commission of Greenwich (FSYC) through which she organized the “The Preschool Project.” Every year, she organizes volunteers from the FSYC to go on-site in Family Centers preschools during the National Week of the Young Child.
While in eighth grade, Isabel started a letter-writing drive in which students expressed the importance of early childhood education for every child. As Isabel says, “Preschool has so many incredibly important long-term effects on the rest of a child’s life, and not having access to high- quality early childhood education serves to perpetuate the achievement gap.”
Isabel plans to use this award to support the preschool at Armstrong Court which, as a Head Start program, faces funding cuts on all levels. Congratulations Isabel Kalb and thank you for making an impact in our community!
Applications for the 2020 Community Service Award will be available in the fall of 2019 at jlgreenwich.org
