The Jewish tradition of “tzedakah,” doing what’s right, is an everyday thing in Charlotte Eisenberg’s home on Peaks Island.
Small tzedakah boxes sit on a kitchen shelf near the microwave, waiting for donations of pocket change throughout the year. When the slotted containers are filled, Charlotte and her siblings donate the money to a charity of their choice.
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“We were raised with the principle of helping others less fortunate than ourselves,” said Charlotte, 13, an eighth-grader at King Middle School in Portland. “It’s definitely something that’s stressed in our home.”
Charlotte’s activism outside the home — from starting an environmental group at school to leading tours at the Fifth Maine Regiment Museum on Peaks Island — has earned national recognition by the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards. The program, sponsored by Prudential Financial and the National Association of Secondary School Principals, honors outstanding youth volunteers across the United States.
Charlotte is one of two Maine teenagers who have been named top youth volunteers for 2011. The other is Ian Pelletier, 18, of Deer Isle-Stonington High School, who raised $30,000 to construct a storage building for an elementary school and performing arts center.
The awards program recognizes two youth volunteers in each state and the District of Columbia.
Each student will receive $1,000, an engraved silver medal and an expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., in May for several days of recognition events.
Ten members of that group will be named national honorees. Each of those winners will receive an additional $5,000 award, an engraved gold medallion, a crystal trophy for their school or organization, and a $5,000 grant from The Prudential Foundation for a charitable organization of their choice.
Charlotte was nominated for the award by Carol Nylen, a social studies teacher at King Middle School who taught Charlotte when she was in sixth and seventh grades.
“Charlotte is amazing,” Nylen said. “She puts her heart and soul into everything she does.”
Charlotte’s activism has included collecting hats and mittens for the local family shelter and selling snacks to ferry passengers to raise money for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
Nylen nominated Charlotte largely because she was instrumental in forming King’s Green Team, which she now leads.
The team started a composting program at the school, raising money to buy several outdoor composting bins to fortify the school’s organic gardens and several indoor worm bins to naturally dispose of students’ fruit and vegetable waste.
The team used recycled paper to make bookmarks and posters about global warming and presented them to sixth-grade classrooms.
The team also tried to replace the school’s plastic foam trays, which Charlotte still hopes to do in the future.
This spring, the team plans to create a purple memorial garden for Kiara Geisinger, a student who died unexpectedly this month. The garden will be filled with crocuses and irises because purple is considered a healing color, team members said.
Charlotte’s activism is augmented by her uncanny ability to enlist others in her efforts, Nylen said. She easily talked some of her island friends into joining the environmental team. They all ride the school bus from the Casco Bay Lines ferry terminal to school, so they never miss a Friday morning meeting.
“She kind of dragged me to a meeting one morning and I stuck with it,” said Hattie Train, an eighth-grader who lives on Long Island.
“Charlotte’s very enthusiastic,” said Imogen Moxhay, a seventh-grader who lives on Peaks. “She was like, ‘You should join. It’s going to be fun.’ So I did.”
Staff Writer Kelley Bouchard can be contacted at 791-6328 or at:
kbouchard@pressherald.com
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