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Thursday, January 03, 2002

By Eleanor Chute, Post-Gazette Education Writer

Third of six profiles
Many high school students perform community service because it's required for graduation, or they want to beef up a college application.

Katie DiPerna, a graduate of Chartiers Valley High School and presently a student at Villanova University, organized a food drive that took in about 14,000 pounds of canned goods for the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. (Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette)

Katie DiPerna, 18, does community service because she loves helping others.

Her list of service activities includes hospital volunteer, visitor to shut-ins from her church and volunteer recreation counselor. But it was a food drive she led for the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank while a student at Chartiers Valley High School last year that has resulted in her becoming a one of six Community Champions receiving a Jefferson Award, considered the Nobel Prize of volunteering.

That food drive took in about 14,000 pounds of canned goods. It was one of the largest, if not the largest, food drive organized for the bank by an individual, said Ivy Ero, the food bank's volunteer coordinator.

"She had such a passion about all of this," Ero said.

Previous profiles Josephine Guy Erin Ebeck Jefferson Award winners making a world of difference by volunteering

That passion came through to the judges selecting Community Champions, part of the national Jefferson Awards program, sponsored by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, AT&T Broadband and Eat'n Park, with help from the United Way. From the nominations made by the public and workers in the nonprofit community, 50 Community Champions were chosen and featured in public service spots last year in the PG and on AT&T cable stations.

From that pool judges chose six people to receive Jefferson Awards. With the honor comes a medallion and a $1,000 donation to the nonprofit organization of the awardee's choice. At 7 p.m. Jan. 24, the Community Champions and Jefferson Award recipients will be recognized at a public reception and ceremony in Carnegie Music Hall, Oakland.

DiPerna of Scott conducted her food drive in connection with a student council conference that attracted about 800 students to Chartiers Valley.

It was the first time a service project was made part of the annual meeting.

She suggested the drive because she had learned that thousands of people in her area depend on the food bank, and the food bank needs donations to meet demands.

"I thought about my life and how having dinner has never been a concern," she said. "Then I thought about all these people. I wanted to give back, and I really wanted to make a difference."

She and other Chartiers Valley student council members urged conference registrants to conduct food drives in their schools and to bring the food with them. They mailed fliers, gave reminders and sent out a list of suggestions on how to conduct food drives.

Earlier in the school year, Chartiers Valley's Interact Club -- of which DiPerna was president -- had gone trick or treating for canned goods, too. For the student council conference, a second food drive was conducted at her school, with a competition among homerooms.

At the conference, there were so many canned goods the food bank had to send a second truck.

"We really had expected maybe 5,000 pounds of canned goods," said DiPerna.

She began her volunteer work in the summer after eighth grade at both St. Clair Memorial Hospital and Kane Hospital.

"My sister [Meghan] volunteered at St. Clair. My mom [Sheila] and my family always really were encouraging to be involved in community service," she said.

At St. Clair, she visited patient rooms with a gift cart.

"A lot of the time, they didn't really want anything off the gift cart. They just wanted someone to talk to," she said. "It was wonderful to go in and hold their hand, and let them tell you stories of their childhood and growing up and listen to their advice. It was a wonderful feeling to walk into someone's room and give them a big smile."

From the bulletin of Our Lady of Grace Church in Scott, DiPerna learned that volunteers were needed to push patients to Sunday Mass at the nearby church. She, her mom and her sister signed on.

"A lot of them did not have a lot of family," DiPerna said. "It was just nice, on the way to and from church, to talk with them, to just be a part of their day."

For three summers, she was a volunteer counselor at the Scott Recreation Center, where she played games with children and took them swimming.

While she was president of the Interact Community Service Club at Chartiers Valley, her favorite of the club's monthly projects was collecting hats and T-shirts to be airlifted to Haiti.

"I saw videos and pictures of the way they lived in Haiti. I was so glad that there was even the smallest thing I could do to help," she said.

Dennis Kirk, a guidance counselor at Chartiers Valley, said she was probably the most active president in his eight years of sponsoring the club.

"She was the type of kid who would come to you and tell you, 'This is a project we should do' rather than the other way around," he said.

He said her love of service is genuine.

"I think a lot of it has to do with her faith. She doesn't separate that from her relationship to people, her commitment to service the community," he said.

DiPerna now is a freshman at Villanova University in Philadelphia, where she is studying business communications.

She was elected to the interhall council from her dormitory and has helped to plan service projects for the residents, including a food drive, although it wasn't her idea. The council is planning to build houses for Habitat for Humanity later in the year.

As a volunteer for a campus ministry group, she visits a women's shelter in Philadelphia a couple of times a month to play cards and have dinner with the women. She also volunteered at the Special Olympics games at Villanova.

To DiPerna, community service is a way of life.

"To know that one person's life was easier because of something that I did, that just makes it worthwhile."

The Jewish Healthcare Foundation is donating $1,000 on behalf of Kathryn DiPerna to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.