September 12, 2001

Joseph Alpers receives Rotary Club recognition

Teen lauded for volunteerism

By LISA PERKINS
Herald staff writer
       Joseph Alpers will receive a much deserved award today, or so say the people who know him. The Traverse Bay Sunrise Rotary Club will present sixteen-year-old Alpers with an Outstanding Contributor Award at their breakfast meeting this morning.
      "The purpose of this award is to showcase kids that do community service for the right reasons," said Patty Tucker, chairperson of the vocational committee that selects award winners.
      "There are a lot of awards for athletics and academics, but in the long run, community service is what makes where we live a better place."
      Alpers, who has been volunteering at least once a week since he was ten, has a long list of people whose lives have been touched by his volunteerism.
      Nearly seven years ago he, along with his younger brother James, started volunteering at the medical care facility at Munson Medical.
      "We played cards with the people there and my brother taught a man to play chess," Alpers said.
      "My mom got my brother and me started in volunteering because she knew it would help us in the future, that it would make us better people."
      When some elderly family members became ill, Alpers took it upon himself to do household chores, fill bird feeders, grocery shopping and basically whatever needed to be done.
      That seems to be what Alpers does, wherever he is-whatever needs to be done.
      Cindy Witkowski, child advocate at the Goodwill Inn where Alpers has volunteered for the past year-and-a-half, thinks that Alpers is very deserving of the award, in fact the Goodwill Inn named him their teen volunteer of the year.
      "I am very fortunate to have him as a teen volunteer," Witkowski said. "He and his brother mentored a boy here who had no father or grandfather, no real male role-model. The change in that boy was amazing."
      Just as his mother predicted, Alpers knows that volunteering has had a big impact on his life.
      "I am more aware of what is going on in our community," Alpers said. "I know not everyone is like me, not every one has an intact family or their own home. I know too that sometimes elderly people just need someone to talk to."
      Alpers, who is a senior at Traverse City West Senior High, is a member of the student senate, National Honor Society, youth group at St. Patrick's Church and a proud brother. His 15-year-old brother James was named the most outstanding teen volunteer, in his age group, for the State of Michigan by the VFW earlier this year.
      "These are such great kids," Witkowski noted, "I'm really glad to see them be recognized."