February 25, 2020
By: Dwayne Page
Lisa Cripps of DeKalb County was honored earlier this month during the 12th Annual Governor’s Volunteer Stars Awards ceremony at the Franklin Marriott Cool Springs in Franklin.
The awards celebrated the efforts of 115 volunteers statewide who have strived to improve their communities through service. Miss Tennessee Volunteer 2019, Kerri Arnold, presented the awards, and NewsChannel5 weekend anchor, Jennifer Kraus, served as emcee for the event.
Cripps was awarded for her active role in improving her community and helping others primarily as the coordinator of the DeKalb Prevention Coalition.
Since becoming board chair and director of the DeKalb Prevention Coalition two years ago, Ms. Cripps has brought this organization’s community engagement to new heights. She works tirelessly and fearlessly to bring awareness, education, and solutions to our community’s drug addiction-related issues, for both addict and prevention programs. In the past two years, Lisa has had over 100 speaking engagements to over 1,000 school children. In 2019, the DeKalb Prevention Coalition held a “Take Back” drug collection that recovered 8.6 pounds of controlled substances and 56.6 pounds of other medications. In addition to her service to DeKalb Prevention Coalition, Lisa serves as Vice Chair of the Chamber of Commerce board of directors. She is a graduate of Leadership DeKalb, and actively gives of her time during program days. She is very involved in her church and has participated in mission work both locally and abroad. Lisa Cripps makes retirement look exhausting.
Participating counties were invited to select one youth and one adult volunteer to receive this prestigious award. Nominees were judged based on the community’s need of the volunteer service performed, initiative taken to perform the service, creativity used to solve a community problem and impact of the volunteer service on the community. The individual awards are sponsored by Community Care of Rutherford County and Tennessee 4-H. Visit www.volunteertennessee.net to find photos of individual honorees receiving their award, as well as additional event photos.
The Governor’s Volunteer Stars Awards also includes business and non-profit categories. One business and one non-profit were selected from each of Tennessee’s three Grand Regions for their outstanding community involvement and service. The business honorees included: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee, East Tennessee Business Honoree; Southeast Venture, Middle Tennessee Business Honoree; and Medtronic, West Tennessee Business Honoree. The business awards were sponsored by Advance Financial. The non-profit honorees included: Centro Hispano de East Tennessee, East Tennessee Non-Profit Honoree; Nashville Conflict Resolution Center, Middle Tennessee Non-Profit Honoree; and Beautiful Spirited Women, West Tennessee Non-Profit Honoree. The non-profit awards were sponsored by Friends of Volunteer Tennessee.
“Each year, 1.6 million Tennessee volunteers give more than 137 million hours of service, contributing the equivalent of $3.3 billion to Tennessee’s economy. They are the backbone of our great state, and by giving of their time and talents to fulfill needs that would otherwise go unmet, they truly embody the spirit of giving,” said Volunteer Tennessee Executive Director, Jim Snell.
Volunteer Tennessee coordinates the Governor’s Volunteer Stars Awards at the state level. Volunteer Tennessee is the 25 member bipartisan citizen board appointed by the Governor to oversee AmeriCorps and service-learning programs and to advance volunteerism and citizen service to solve community problems in the Volunteer State.