Charlottesville Key Clubber Named Kiwanis Capital District Teenager of the Year
by Jim Hart
(Pictured are (from left) Jim Hart, Kiwanis Club of Charlottesville President-Elect, Roger Diehl, Kiwanis Club of Westminster MD and Capital District T-O-Y-Award Committee Chair, Nicole Muller, and Kathy Johnson, Kiwanis Club of Waynesboro and Lt Gov of Division Five of the Capital District.)
Nicole Muller, a rising senior at Western Albemarle High School and a member of the WAHS Key Club, has been selected as the winner of the Kiwanis Capital District Teenager of the Year Award. Nicole is the founder of the Neighbors-4-Neighbors Food Drive, which was launched in August of 2009 in order to collect food for the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, whose supplies have been depleted by extraordinary demand in these tough economic times. She started her drive in her own local neighborhood, setting an ambitious goal of one ton of food. The response from her neighbors, especially from families going door to door in their neighborhoods, was so great that Nicole was encouraged to increase her goal to 10,000 pounds and to expand her appeal for food to neighbors in surrounding counties across Virginia and eventually to 16 other states. Food banks from as far away as Alaska began seeing the impact of Neighbors-4-Neighbors Drives. In the Capital District of Kiwanis, where there are more than 180 clubs in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia, Nicole's Neighbors-4-Neighbors Food Drive Initiative brought in 26,677 pounds of food, providing an estimated 20,808 meals. Larry Zippin, CEO of the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, said that Nicole has organized one of the most effective individual food drives in the history of the Food Bank. The second annual drive will launch in August with Nicole setting a goal of 50,000 pounds of food and with donations being made in all fifty states, in local partnerships between food banks and schools, businesses, churches, civic groups, and neighborhood organizations.
The Teenager of the Year Award carries a stipend of $2,000 and it was presented to Nicole at the annual Capital District Kiwanis Convention held in Lynchburg on August 21.
