Church of Scientology Recognizes Five Groups for National Volunteer Week

Tampa Bay, Florida - April 21, 2010 - In keeping with this year’s theme for National Volunteer Week of “Celebrating People in Action”, on Friday, April 23^rd at the historic Fort Harrison in downtown Clearwater, the Church of Scientology will recognize five groups in Florida who collectively have provided millions of hours in volunteer time since the beginning of 2010 – a period of time which has seen major natural disaster as well as economic upheaval affecting the lives of millions of people just in this region of the world alone. The groups which will be recognized are: Project Medishare of the University of Miami Hospital, Feeding America Tampa Bay, Disaster Management of United Way Tampa Bay, the United Relief Force Foundation and the Willa Carson Health Resource Center. The Church of Scientology recognizes the dedicated actions of the volunteers from these groups who have committed themselves to senseless acts of kindness resulting in over 1,000,000 hours of donated time in the first 4 months of 2010 alone, millions of dollars in donations and hundreds of thousands of people helped in Haiti, Florida, Tampa Bay and Clearwater.

“We have had the privilege of working with these dynamic groups and want them to know that their work is important to the stability and development of our communities,” said Pat Harney, the Public Affairs Director of the Church of Scientology, Flag Service Organization. “We chose these organizations because we have seen their work close up and know how much they mean to Clearwater, Tampa Bay and beyond.” According to Harney, the event is inspired by the founder of the Scientology religious philosophy Mr. Hubbard, who once wrote, “A being is only as valuable as he can serve others.”

WHO WILL BE RECOGNIZED:

1. Project Medishare of the University of Miami Hospital, the group that organized, built and manned the largest field hospital in history on the airport grounds of Port-au-Prince, Haiti following the massive earthquake disaster there.

2. Feeding America Tampa Bay; formerly known as America’s Second Harvest of Tampa Bay was founded in 1982, is a food bank servicing 35,000 hungry people from 10 counties of Tampa Bay with some 10 million meals. In a single week, they provide over 50,000 meals.

3. Hands on Tampa Bay, United Way Tampa Bay, has 3,500 volunteers who have delivered 22,819 hours of service, the equivalent of nearly 11 years of work for the community.

4. The United Relief Force Foundation was initiated in February 2007 in Orlando by a group of college students dedicated to improving the lives of people who need humanitarian aid, emergency response and disaster relief to countries that have experienced natural and man-made disasters. Recently, several of their members dedicated themselves to the problems of the February 12^th earthquake in Haiti, joining forces with the Scientology Volunteer Ministers to reach out and assist the citizens there.

5. Willa Carson Health Resource Center is a non-profit, volunteer organization that provides free basic health care services to the citizens the neighborhood of Greenwood in Clearwater, Florida.

WHAT IS THE NATIONAL VOLUNTEER WEEK

National Volunteer Week was signed into executive order by President Richard Nixon on April 20^th, 1974 declaring the third week in April be dedicated to those who give their time to charity. Since then all the US presidents who have followed have called upon Americans to volunteer service to others and to raise awareness to the importance of volunteering during this week. In 1990, the Points of Light Foundation now called the Points of Light Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing the number of people and resources in volunteering so as to help solve serious social problems, adopted the sponsorship of the National Volunteer Week, and is promoting efforts for this week, which falls on April 18^th to 24^th this year.

If you would like to know how you can help your community contact Pat Harney at (727) 467 – 6860 or email her at patharney@flag.org.

^{"Happiness and strength endure only in the absence of hate. To hate alone is the road to disaster. To love is the road to strength. To love in spite of all is the secret of greatness. And may very well be the greatest secret in this universe." L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Scientology Religion.}