On May 13th, 2009 ABC Action News hosted a special visit for this year’s Jefferson Awards for Public Service honorees. Local winner, Betty Perry, first runner-up Dianne Villano and second runner-up Sister Claire LeBoeuf arrived at the station with family and friends to receive their award medallions and certificates. The three bay area residents were selected by a panel of WFTS –TV judges for their outstanding community service. Also serving as guest judges this year were Sean and Jeanne Caroline, the 2008 local winners of the Jefferson Award and founders of Seanne’s Wish Foundation.
This year’s local winner, better known as “Miss Betty”, founded a breakfast ministry at Mount Zion United Methodist Church 4 years ago to feed needy and homeless families. The breakfast ministry has grown to serve between 200 – 250 people each Sunday. The housekeeper from Clearwater is so dedicated to helping others she pays for the food herself when donations are not enough to cover the costs. No one is turned away, Miss Betty says proudly. She will represent the Tampa Bay area during the national award ceremony by the Jefferson Award for Public Service Institute in Washington D.C.
During the last three years, First runner-up Dianne Villano has collected, packed & shipped more than 3,000 care packages to Marines serving overseas in Iraq. Creating
www.supportourmarinesinc.org, Villano participates in fundraisers throughout the year, even running in full combat gear to bring awareness to the hardship troops face overseas every day. She plans to give her Jefferson Award medallion to a wounded marine who inspired her on this journey – the marine is recovering from traumatic head injuries at the James Haley VA Hospital. Tune in for that story on ABC Action News.
Second runner – up Sister Claire LeBoeuf is the founder of the St. Francis Foundation, which helps abused and neglected children. This inspiring church servant is unwavering in her mission to provide children with safe and permanent homes.
WFTS – TV in Tampa is one of several stations nationwide to participatein the Jefferson Awards for Public Service and the only televisionstation to do so in the Tampa Bay area. The awards date back to 1972when Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, U.S. Senator Robert Taft, Jr. and SamBeard founded the American Institute for Public Service, a non-profitfoundation, to establish a Nobel Prize for public and community service- The Jefferson Awards. The Jefferson Awards are presented on twolevels: national and local. National award recipients represent a"Who's Who" of outstanding Americans.
