One Midway ISD student was honored in Washington D.C. for her volunteer efforts.
12-year-old Courtney Janecka was honored during the 21st annual presentation of The Prudential Spirit Community Awards.
Janecka, along with 100 other top youth volunteers, received a $1,000 award and a personal congratulations from Academy Award-winning actress Hilary Swank at the gala dinner reception at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.
She is a sixth-grader at Midway River Valley Intermediate.
Janecka makes and sells beaded bracelets to enable her mother to give away the book she wrote on surviving cancer to other cancer patients.
“Her book can help people and I decided that I wanted to help too,” Janecka said. “I knew that if I could raise money, we could give her books away to people with cancer.”
After a friend heard of Janecka’s plan and sent her a bracelet, she decided she could make and sell similar ones to raise money. “Courtney’s Creations” was born in late 2013.
Over the past two years, Courtney has sold more than 1,100 bracelets online and at some local stores, raising over $10,000 and enabling her mother to give away more than 800 of her books.
The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program named Janecka and another Texas student from Dallas Texas' top high school and middle level youth volunteers in February.
In addition to their cash awards, they each received an engraved silver medallion and an all-expense-paid trip with a parent to Washington, D.C., for four days of recognition events.
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