Allcorn honored for Community Cafe

A Smith-Cotton High School senior was recognized Monday as one of the top 10 youth volunteers in the nation.

Kristen Allcorn, 18, received a national Prudential Spirit of Community Award for her work in starting the Community Cafe, a soup kitchen that has served more than 12,000 meals to the needy in Sedalia since December 2006.

Allcorn said during a telephone interview Monday from Washington, D.C., she was humbled and honored by the award.

“There are so many people who have done so many great things; it’s just really great to be recognized for doing community service,” she said.

Some 20,000 teens nationwide applied for the award, and 102 were selected as finalists, two from each state and the District of Columbia. Ten of the finalists, five high school and five middle school students, won awards.

Allcorn received $5,000, an engraved gold medallion, a crystal trophy for her school and $5,000 for a charity of her choice. She said she hasn’t decided how to spend the personal prize money, but it could go toward college, the Community Cafe or future missions projects.

Allcorn said she would like the $5,000 for charity to benefit the Community Cafe.

“That would be a great, great asset to us,” she said.

The cafe could use the money to replace worn out cooking supplies or buy more tables and chairs.

Allcorn started Community Cafe as a community service project for the Smith-Cotton honor society. In the beginning, volunteers served a hot meal to about a dozen people once a week in the Ditzfeld Center. The cafe has grown to serving 60 to 80 people five days a week.

“It started just as a small project, and it’s grown to be so much more,” Allcorn said. “I couldn’t have done it without the support of my community.”

Organizations take turns cooking and serving meals. The Central Missouri Food Bank donates food. Allcorn recruits, schedules and directs volunteers, organizes food donations, serves food, registers diners does administrative work and attends monthly board meetings.

Allcorn said she is turning over the operation to juniors and sophomores. “It will remain a student-run organization,” she said.

Fans of Allcorn in Sedalia said they think the cafe founder deserves national recognition. Bryan Bergeson nominated Allcorn for The Democrat’s Torch Award, for which she was one of 10 finalists. Bergeson volunteers at the cafe once a month along with other Aquila employees.

“The time and effort she’s put into this, you don’t see that with a lot of kids these days,” he said.

Josh Beard, 18, who recently turned over his duties as vice executive director of the cafe, said he wasn’t surprised Allcorn was an award recipient.

“She has a spirit about her,” Beard said. “It’s one of those things that’s hard to describe unless you know that person. ... She’s a genuinely nice person, and with that quality she’s able to lead.”

Allcorn said she was impressed by the work of her peers throughout the country. A young woman from Cleveland, Tenn., started “Tunes 4 the Troops,” an organization that has collected more than 170,000 compact discs and DVDs for soldiers overseas. A girl from Boulder, Colo., created a nonprofit geared toward suicide prevention, and a teen from Lock Haven, Pa., brought her community together to build a modular home for an 80-year-old woman left homeless by Hurricane Katrina.

Allcorn said the projects were “amazing things I would have never thought of to do.”

“It’s just great to see what everyone has done,” she said.

 Nicholas Mozer, 13, of Blue Springs, was the other teen chosen from Missouri for his work in raising more than $183,000 for pediatric cancer research. Mozer raised the money through lemonade stands in the Kansas City area.

Each of the 102 youth volunteers received $1,000, presented by Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, Sunday evening at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

The honorees also received an engraved silver medallion and an expense-paid trip with their parents to Washington.

Allcorn took her mother, Linda. They left Saturday and are scheduled to return to Sedalia Tuesday.

A national selection committee composed of senators, presidents of non-profit agencies and two honorees from 2007, chose the top 10 youth volunteers. Committee members included U.S. Senators John Kerry, D-Mass., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and actor Richard Dreyfuss.

snail@sedaliademocrat.com