Diane Snyder & Sasha Warren

Danielle Lucht & Shavon Chester

FORT MYERS, Fla. (June 23, 2015) – The Junior League of Fort Myers, Inc. recently announced its 2015 member awards at its annual dinner in May.

The Rising Star awards for new members went to Diane Snyder and Kerry Pirrone. The Junior League’s Outstanding Service awards were presented to Leah Armstrong, Jessica Steinberg, Amelia May, Alex Hamley and Carol Feskanin. Shavon Chester received the President’s Award, and Sandra Raak was awarded the Sustainer Impact Award. Special Committee Recognition went to the 32nd Annual Taste of the Town committee for its outstanding performance in 2014.

Since 1966, the Junior League of Fort Myers, Inc. has contributed more than one million volunteer hours to community projects and programs.

Since its founding in 1901 by social activist Mary Harriman, the Junior League has evolved into one of the oldest, largest and most effective women’s volunteer organizations in the world, encompassing 150,000 women in 292 Leagues in four countries. Its mandate has remained the same: to develop exceptionally qualified civic leaders who collaborate with community partners to identify a community’s most urgent needs and address them with meaningful and relevant programs and initiatives that not only improve lives but also change the way people think.

Through the decades, the JLFM has made major contributions to Southwest Florida to support a wide variety of community needs including founding the Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium (1973), the Volunteer Service Bureau – Volunteer Action Center – now known as Volunteer Center (1992),

Teen Court (1992) and the Women’s Resource Center (1996). It has also been active in feeding the hungry in the five-county area through the food drive at the annual Taste of the Town, mentoring teenage girls in foster care, supporting self defense for women, preparing women to re-enter the workforce, creating a listening library for cancer patients, preserving historic architecture, supporting the Ronald McDonald House, distributing holiday food baskets, organizing holiday gift drives, providing gender-specific programming to teenage girls in juvenile justice, supplying backpacks to children in Harlem Heights Community and more.

A member of the Association of Junior Leagues International, Inc., the Junior League of Fort Myers, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 1966 and made up of women committed to promoting voluntarism, developing the potential of women and improving the community through the effective action and leadership of trained volunteers. Its purpose is exclusively educational and charitable. The JLFM is also a granting organization, providing mini-grants to organizations throughout Southwest Florida’s five-county area to programs that create better life outcomes for our area’s youth. JLFM memberships are open to all women aged 21 and older of all races, religions and national origin who demonstrate an interest in and commitment to voluntarism.

For more information, call 239-277-1197 or visit www.jlfm.org.

Sasha Warren & Jessica Steinberg

Sasha Warren & Amelia May

Sasha Warren & Alex Hamley

Leah Armstrong & Sasha Warren

Kerry Pirrone & Sasha Warren

Danielle Lucht & Sandra Raak