Community Corner

Nominations Open For Senior Volunteer of the Year Awards

The community has about three weeks left to nominate local men and women to be honored this year.

Brecksville values its volunteers. And this May, the community will add another man and woman to its long-running list of volunteers who have given much to the city.

Since the 1970s, Brecksville has honored local individuals as senior volunteers of the year, said Ted Lux, director of the city’s Human Services Department. According to information from Lux, the award is sponsored by the department and by the Brecksville Kiwanis Club. 

Nomination forms are available now at the and they are due on March 19. The volunteers can spend their time in any area of the city. After the nominations are in, the honorees will be chosen and named during a luncheon in May. 

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The honor is something like a lifetime service award, Lux said, but that doesn’t mean the honorees are done giving back. 

Take Margie Benedict, one of the city’s previous winners, for example. Benedict, 84, said she was in “disbelief” when she was named as an honoree, pleased and a bit overwhelmed. The former elementary school teacher couldn’t remember the exact year she was named, but she knows it was after her husband, Claude, also received the honor. Both the Benedicts were involved in many committees and school organizations over the years, she said.

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Benedict said she had always been blessed and that it just seems right to give back. Claude Benedict has since passed away, but Margie Benedict is still involved in the city, volunteering at the Human Services Center, among other places. 

“I love this town,” Benedict said.


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