By Gene Lee

Several seniors and one junior were honored during the Annual Outreach Awards last Wednesday. This was the last event for Jan Stewart as the Community Service Director since she will be leaving after this year.

Along with the students, art teacher Marianne Hall and bookstore employee Ali Costa were also honored at the event. Hall was honored for Youth Ending Hunger while Costa was awarded for Readergirlz, a program that advocates teen literacy.  Seniors Natalie Williams and Stefanie Saperstein gave speechs at the event.

Williams talked about her program Smile Train which raises money for surgeries for children with cleft palate.  Saperstein talked about her clothing line Chiave, which donates 5% of its profits to programs against drunk driving. She also displayed and sold some of her clothes after the award ceremony.

Twenty-one seniors were given the Benefacta award and 12 seniors and one junior were given the “Truly Remarkable” award. Katie Heartney was the only junior who was honored for her work with Amnesty International.

The Benefacta award honors seniors who give “quintessential commitment to others” and are “relentless givers.”

Students received their personalized awards via mail the next day. There was a reception after the awards for students and family members.

“I didn’t feel excited so much about my own award, but being up there with other amazing awardees made me feel that there were many other people out there helping the community,” Ian Stanton ’08 said.  He received a Benefacta for “Music Outreach for Harvard-Westlake and Beyond.”