Seven in Whatcom County receive Heart & Hands Awards for volunteer work

BELLINGHAM - Six Whatcom County residents and a nonprofit doing their part to help the community have received this year's Heart & Hands Awards from the Whatcom Volunteer Center.

They were among 65 Whatcom County volunteers feted at an event earlier this month in Bellingham.

Those singled out for the Heart & Hands Awards also received a $200 donation to the nonprofit of their choice. The recipients are:

David Alter, 15, who has been volunteering at the Bellingham Food Bank for four years. The Bellingham resident, who grew up in Ukraine, started with his father every Wednesday night before deciding to also help on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays after school.

The teen is praised for convincing friends to volunteer at the food bank, and for using his ability to speak Russian to bridge the communication gap between the English-speaking volunteers at the food bank and Russian-speaking clients.

Blaine resident Elmo Creech, for years of helping at the Blaine Food Bank, as a volunteer firefighter with Whatcom County Fire District No. 7-Whitehorn and at Blaine Elementary School, where he assists each week with the after-school unicycle class.

He's also visited schools, nursing homes and senior centers, making people smile with his balloon animals.

Sean Hall, a leader at Mosaic Church, for organizing volunteers for events such as Make A Difference Day and this year's Project Homeless Connect.

The Bellingham resident is credited with coordinating an outreach team that delivered fliers to people living in tents, cars and shelters - an effort that brought 600 homeless to a one-day event in Bellingham where they were able to get various services from health care to haircuts.

Patrick Healy, a Bellingham man who started Bikers Fighting Cancer in 2002 after meeting an 11-year-old boy with terminal brain cancer and while he himself was battling cancer.

All of the money raised through the volunteer organization goes to help children with cancer.

Since its start in 2002, the club has grown to 50 members and three chapters in Washington state and Oregon.

Ken and Phyllis Weber, who served for 18 years with Friends of the Bellingham Public Library.

The Bellingham residents each volunteered more than 18,000 hours and helped raise more than $600,000 for children's programs, materials, technology and furnishings for the library.

For the first time, Whatcom Volunteer Center also honored an organization. This year, Bellingham Food Bank was lauded for working with volunteers to achieve its goals.

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