LakewoodAlive Honors Volunteers With Appreciation Happy Hour

More than 50 volunteers attended LakewoodAlive's Appreciation Happy Hour at Blue Ridge Media Company.

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As the saying goes, it takes a village. This is certainly true in the case of LakewoodAlive, a volunteer-driven nonprofit organization that relies heavily on community members to help fulfill our mission to foster and sustain vibrant neighborhoods.

LakewoodAlive hosted a Volunteer Appreciation Happy Hour on Thursday evening, January 30, at the new office of Blue Ridge Media Company, a Lakewood-based marketing agency. The event, attended by more than 50 volunteers, featured refreshments, friendships and stories of remarkable volunteerism. LakewoodAlive celebrated the nearly 750 volunteers who, in 2019, contributed their time and talents to supporting our organization and to helping improve quality of life in Lakewood.

Volunteer Champion Awards were bestowed upon the following individuals for their outstanding service to LakewoodAlive:

Outgoing LakewoodAlive Board Members

• Steve Clark
• Dr. James Hekman

Housing Outreach Program

• A-Team - Aaron Cooper, Jeff Davis, Jim Hayes, Carl Orban and Dana Paul
• Cleveland Lumber Company
• Chris Gonda
• Help To Others (H2O)
• John Turner

Downtown Lakewood Business Alliance

• Dani Krasnicki
• Tamara Racin

Lakewood Summer Meltdown

• Ann Bish

Spooky Pooch Parade

• Whitney Callahan

Light Up Lakewood

• Melis Uras
• Katie Lang

Above & Beyond

• Lauren Cantrell
• Kelly Florian
• Nora McNamara

A special award is bestowed each year to a volunteer who demonstrates uniquely outstanding commitment to LakewoodAlive. The Laskey Service Award was named for Tim Laskey, a founding member of LakewoodAlive. This year’s Laskey Service Award recipient is Jim “JP” Ptacek.

JP, a LakewoodAlive board member, has made an exceptional impact on our organization in many ways. He helped lead the launch of The Lakewood Tool Box last year, donating his professional skills as an architect to the design and execution of this important undertaking. As chair of the Housing Committee, JP assists Allison Urbanek, our Housing & Internal Operations Director, with spearheading many of LakewoodAlive’s Housing Outreach initiatives, and is an active participant in various volunteer housing projects. In perhaps his most unique role within our organization, JP also serves as “Charlie Chonka” each October during the ever-popular Lakewood Chocolate Walk.         

“The outpouring of support we receive from our dedicated volunteers is simply incredible,” said Ian Andrews, Executive Director for LakewoodAlive. “Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to these folks for all they do for Lakewood, and for helping us fulfill our mission to foster and sustain vibrant neighborhoods.”

To learn more about how you can get involved with LakewoodAlive, please visit LakewoodAlive.org/Volunteer.