Local Youth Sets Service Example
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July 28, 2010, at 06:00 AM
CJ Vickers with Red Cross mentors Rita Danztler and Suzanne Winkler.
Suzanne Winkler
“I think the best part of volunteer work is the satisfaction that what you are doing is helping people."
While most high school students are anxiously drinking up the last days of summer, soon-to-be-senior CJ Vickers is preparing to leave on a week-long mission trip to Haiti with the Harvey Oaks Baptist Church. It is just one of many volunteer efforts this remarkable youth has completed over the last decade.
“We are so proud of him,” said his mother, Mary Vickers. “He has seen his own potential and is living up to it.”
Meet Charles “CJ” Vickers—son of Chuck and Mary Vickers and local volunteer star. This young man has recently received public applause for his long list of volunteer efforts. In the last year alone, Vickers has served as president of the Heartland Chapter Red Cross Youth Council, assisted for three months with the Autism Puzzle Walk, prepared school supply kits for shipment overseas, served on a panel to educate others about autism, raised money for a mission trip to Haiti, and completed numerous other service endeavors.
“When I was a little boy, I served because my parents told me to,” Vickers related, “but now it is more a habit of my own that has just stayed with me.”
It is a more than noteworthy habit. Thus far in 2010, Vickers has been recognized with three prestigious awards: the United Way Midlands Volunteen of the Year Award, the Red Cross Heartland Chapter Youth Volunteer of the Year Award, and, most recently, the 2010 Mary Jane Eisenhower Partner in Peace Scholarship from People to People International. The scholarship will provide Vickers with approximately $1,000 to fund his attendance at a leadership forum in Atlanta.
“I think the best part of volunteer work is the satisfaction that what you are doing is helping people,” he said.
His confident tone and gleaming list of public awards give no hint to how far CJ Vickers has truly come. As a young boy diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, a condition that often has an adverse effect on social skills, Vickers has made a remarkable transformation in becoming an independent, confident young man. When his love of everything weather-related led him from tornado chasing to disaster relief education, it was only a short jump to the world of humanitarian work. Vickers had found not only his talent, but his passion.
“CJ found that when there was a cause he was passionate about, he could really do something with that,” shared Mary Vickers. “He’s going. He’s moving forward. He’s blossoming and following his own little star,” she said with a smile.
And Vickers certainly has done just that. He plans to graduate early from Millard West High School this December and complete several general studies at the University of Nebraska-Omaha before moving on to another college. And while the details of his future plans are still a bit undefined, he is certain of one thing: his future career will be volunteer-related.
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