 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Senior honored for volunteerism
By JOHN BALZ, Times Staff Writer TAMPA PALMS -- When it comes to volunteering, Kristin Luttrell does what is asked and then some. Students at Luttrell's alma mater, Academy of the Holy Names, are required to complete 75 hours of community service. Luttrell racked up 1,098 before graduating in May. The bulk of the hours came on three separate trips with a Christian missionary group to Honduras, where Luttrell rebuilt homes and latrines destroyed by Hurricane Mitch. The Tampa City Council took notice of her eye-popping total by awarding her a commendation in June. "It was a huge honor," Luttrell said of the commendation. "I felt really humbled. It's so easy to get bigheaded." The 18-year-old Tampa Palms resident is the daughter of Scott Luttrell, an area developer who chairs the New Tampa YMCA's board of directors. She will attend Vanderbilt University this fall and major in elementary education. She chose the Nashville, Tenn., school in part because of its service opportunities and wrote one of her college entrance essays about some of the programs she hoped to explore. "I consider all the service I've done to be God's blessings," said Luttrell, who embarked on her fourth trip to Honduras after graduation. "I'm not the one who deserves applause." In Trujillo and the Olancho Valley, Luttrell joined other teens and adults from Tampa in laying down cement floors and putting up mud walls, which help stop the spread of germs and parasites during the Central American nation's heavy downpours. On her most recent journey, the group built four sheds, poured 14 cement floors and installed 14 chimneys. In the afternoons, as part of a vacation Bible school, Luttrell played soccer with the children, made bracelets out of leather strips and colored beads and helped put on a performance of the Charles Dickens' classic A Christmas Story. By the end of trips, Luttrell considered the young girls sisters with "awesome hearts." "We go to serve them and make an impact on their lives," said Luttrell, a member of St. James United Methodist Church. "But when we get back, we realize what a spiritual impact they made on us." -- John Balz can be reached at (813) 269-5313 or at balz@sptimes.com
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times |
