Twyla Sable is a diminutive spark plug, a catalyst for change.

Through the National Council of Jewish Women, Pittsburgh Section, Mrs. Sable has been a tireless advocate for women, children and families -- especially in the area of domestic violence.

Because of her volunteer work with the council's Silent Witness Initiative, the Children's Play Rooms at the Allegheny County courts and Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's post-agenda committee on domestic violence, she has been named a winner of the 2007 Jefferson Award of Public Service.

Touched by the honor, she says she can't believe her volunteer work has garnered such accolades.

"I do things ... because I care," says Mrs. Sable, 65, of Squirrel Hill. "I care about people -- families, women and children. It's a passion in my heart."

The Jefferson Award program honors outstanding volunteers and is administered by the America Institute for Public Service, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Pittsburgh Foundation and The Heinz Endowments. An awards ceremony will be scheduled in late February to honor winners and the WOMEN of Southwestern Pa. will donate $1,000 to the National Council of Jewish Women in Mrs. Sable's name.

Karen Egorin, a council member who has worked with Mrs. Sable on several volunteer projects, nominated her for the award.

"She's the most amazing woman because she is determined," says Ms. Egorin. "She has worked and worked and worked and worked without any thought about herself or her time or her life."

In addition to her remarkable selflessness, Mrs. Sable also has inspired others to get involved.

Mrs. Sable vividly recalls beginning to learn the importance of giving when she was a girl of about 4. Her mother answered the doorbell one day to find a hobo standing there.

"I got hysterical," she says. "I was hiding behind the chair."

"Little girl, I won't hurt you," the man told her.

Her mother gave the stranger food and then he left. She later understood he came to their door because he had no food and knew her mother would help him.

"You learn from your parents about giving," she says. "That's really probably where it comes from."

After she moved to Pittsburgh 44 years ago to marry and make a life with her husband, attorney Robert Sable, she became involved with the group, Pioneer Women -- now called NA'AMAT -- that served women, children and families in Israel.

In the early 1970s, she went on to volunteer as a math tutor at Wightman School when her children -- Alan, now a local attorney, and Marc, an assistant professor of political science at Bethany College -- attended the school.

In the late 1990s, she started volunteering at the Children's Play Rooms at Allegheny County's Juvenile Court and then Family Court. She would play with the children and give them cheese sandwiches and snacks. She even decorated the children's room, painting flowers on the wall to "cheer it up," and started an art program for children.

Ellen Siegel, director of the Children's Play Rooms in the Allegheny County courts, described Mrs. Sable as "a ray of sunshine" during the six years she volunteered there.

"She loved to play with the children. She was very creative, very dependable," Ms. Siegel said.

Mrs. Sable thoroughly enjoyed the time she spent volunteering there.

"The children who came to the court were children of families that were not functioning well, and you would see a young mother come in who had bruises or a black eye or stitches, and you wanted to know why this was happening," she says. "The room was a wonderful place for these children to have safety, love and play."

On one occasion, a child, who had walked all night with her mother to get an emergency protection from abuse order, broke down crying in the Children's Room. Mrs. Sable asked her what was wrong.

"I'm so tired," the little girl said. "I'm just so tired."

Mrs. Sable sat in a rocking chair and invited the little girl to climb into her lap.

"I don't have a big lap, but I have a big heart," she told the child.

She wrapped her arms around the little girl and started to rock her.

"You could feel her relaxing in my arms," Mrs. Sable says. "She fell asleep for an hour and a half, and it made me feel good to know that this little girl had someone who cared."

In the late 1990s, she became involved with the Silent Witness Initiative, which promoted domestic violence awareness through the display of red freestanding wooden silhouettes, which told the story of a Southwestern Pennsylvania woman who had been killed through domestic violence. The council now oversees the program nationwide.

While the silhouettes were powerful, Mrs. Sable, who chaired the Silent Witness Initiative for many years, was frustrated.

"We unveil life-sized wooden silhouettes of women who have been murdered and we lend them out for free, but we're not touching the issue," she said. "Let's try and help these women before they die."

To that end, in 2001, she helped develop AWARE, A Woman's Abuse Resource Endeavor, which was the poster project outgrowth of the Silent Witness Initiative. The posters, which list the 24-hour emergency hot line numbers to local battered women's shelters, were put up in women's bathrooms in bars, restaurants, colleges and community centers.

"Calls to the shelters more than doubled that first month," she says.

She also spearheaded a local chapter of Sheila's Shawls, which locally provides home-made hand-knitted and crocheted items to women's shelters. In June 2007, Mrs. Sable was part of Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's post-agenda committee on domestic violence, which helped draft language for an ordinance outlining how domestic violence accusations against police officers should be handled.

She's pleased with the ordinance, enjoyed the process and pledged to continue to work with the city and county on other policies that deal with abuse.

"It's not the end. We're not finished," she says. "We'll give everybody a break for a few weeks, and then we'll start over."