Four people have been honoured with the Paul Harris Fellow Award from the Rotary Club of Abbotsford in recognition of their exceptional service to the community.
Rebecca Thuro, Brad Friesen, Nick Taylor and seven-year-old Chase received the awards last week, acknowledging their support of the Starfish Pack program in Abbotsford.
The program provides backpacks filled with food to go home with participating kids every weekend.
Chase was honoured with the award for raising $8,206 to fund 15 backpacks as his birthday wish.
Thuro works for the Abbotsford Food Bank and has been instrumental in creating and maintaining the starfishpack.com website. She also provides support to eight other Rotary Clubs who have launched this same program to feed hungry children in their communities.
Friesen, plant manager of Hershey Canada’s Brookside plant, sponsored 12 Starfish backpacks for two years and donated Valentine’s Day candy in 2016 for nearly 500 kids being supported through the program.
Professional golfer Taylor chose the Starfish Pack program as his charity of choice through RMC Golf4Kids and raised $15,000 that allowed the program to add two new schools to Starfish.
The award is named for Paul Harris, the founder of Rotary International, and is bestowed to both members of the local club and individuals in the community.