Heart House: Volunteer Spotlight

Sunshine Prior

Sunshine Prior, Heart House Dallas

This month’s Heart House Dallas volunteer spotlight is on Sunshine Prior, our tireless summer intern. Sunshine, a sophomore at SMU, was selected for a 2003 Maguire Public Internship which she chose to carry out at Heart House Dallas. With an extensive volunteering background that includes work as a Teaching Assistant with deaf students and as a museum docent, an easygoing personality, bright ideas, and limitless energy, Sunshine quickly became an integral part of Heart House operations. She carried out a variety of tasks, working directly with the children as a program leader, and also helping in the office with curriculum development, special speaker planning, newsletter writing, and fundraising research.

Sunshine aimed to be a good role model for the children, helping expose them to new options for their own lives, and encouraging them to take their education seriously. She felt that the kids at Heart House were “well behaved, curious, funny, and intelligent…the best part of the day!” Sunshine seemed to get as much out of her service at Heart House as she put into it. She says: “I have gained what I had hoped to, a clarification of my calling in life. This internship was a big deal for me because through the work I would be doing, I hoped to find out if children were definitely in my future career- and they are!”

Heart House Dallas decided that Sunshine was indispensable and offered her employment which she thankfully accepted. Thank you for all of your hard work Sunshine. We all look forward to working further with you.

Sarah Hoff

Sarah Hoff, Heart House Austin

Ms. Sarah Hoff is Heart House Austin's Volunteer of the Month. Sarah began volunteering last December and has dedicated many hours to helping the children during activity, snack, and clean-up time. Sarah is one of the most reliable, dependable volunteers that we have. She has never missed a volunteer shift without calling in advance and she is always on time.

Originally from Rhode Island , Sarah attends Southwest Texas State University (SWT) and hopes to become a high school Social Studies teacher. She enjoys learning about other cultures and reading. Sarah has over 1700 hours of experience volunteering with children in AmeriCorps. She was a City Year Corpsmember in San Antonio where she taught Internet classes to kids. This experience helped to prepare her for volunteering at Heart House. About her AmeriCorps Service, Sarah says, “Every Saturday morning we had a camp called ‘KidVid Camp’ for third and fourth graders and we helped them make home movies. The kids came up with a story board, designed a set and we taught them how to use lighting and video equipment. This was my first experience working with children.”

After devoting so much time to helping kids in San Antonio , Sarah moved to Austin to attend college. And, although her University is about 45 minutes from Heart House, Sarah has volunteered twice per week for the last 6 months. She is always on time and in a great mood when she arrives (even after a long drive in traffic!) When she is not studying for her classes, Sarah enjoys cooking. She volunteered to use her cooking talent to prepare 100 chocolate covered strawberries for the Heart House End of the Year celebration. Sarah not only attended the party to recognize the kid’s accomplishments, but she went above and beyond the call of volunteer duty to prepare the delicious strawberries. This summer, Sarah is in charge of preparing the children’s snacks on Tuesdays. We can always count on her to be on-time and on-task and there is never any doubt that snack will not be ready for snack time when Ms. Sarah is in the kitchen.

The children have come to know Sarah as a patient volunteer who reads with them, plays games, and is the maker of the juicy chocolate strawberries. Site Director Diane Cannon says, “Sarah is truly one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. The Heart House kids are very fortunate to have such an exemplary role model.”

A heartfelt thank you goes to Sarah Hoff for all of her help at Heart House Austin!

Whether working directly with the children or providing technical or administrative expertise in the background, your help is needed! Check out our website and volunteer opportunities or fill out an on-line application today!

Read more Volunteer Spotlights:

Tim Galloway, Heart House Dallas

Vicki Sicola, Heart House Austin

Keith Woods, Heart House Dallas

Brian Guerra, Heart House Dallas

Jameela Klaimy, Heart House Dallas

Bob Lessard, Heart House Dallas

Catherine Bennett, Heart House Dallas

Nadia Kamar, Heart House Dallas

Laura Whitter, Heart House Dallas

Renata Limon and Kelly Dodds, Heart House Austin

Linda Nguyen, Heart House Austin