The AFS-USA Mission Award recognizes an outstanding volunteer who has made a significant impact in promoting the core values and mission of AFS through their leadership at the local or national level.
The 2019 AFS-USA Mission Award goes to Barb Kelly of the Greater Chicago Area Team. Barb was nominated by Murray Johnson, Greater Chicago Area Team Chair. In Murray’s nomination, he describes Barb this way:
“If you were to look closely behind the cool sunglasses of the Energizer Bunny, I bet that you would see the face of Barb Kelly. Barb has been a global active citizen with AFS for many years starting back when she was working full time as a teacher and raising her four adopted kids. Today she is retired, helping with her grandkids and has overcome a couple bouts with cancer, but none of that has slowed her down. She lives the AFS mission of working toward a more just and peaceful world by providing international and intercultural learning experiences to individuals, families, schools, and communities.
Barb is not only one of the longest serving volunteers in the Greater Chicago Area Team, but she is also the first to welcome new volunteers and prospective host families. She is quick to help students, host families, and other volunteers when challenges occur. Barb jokingly says that there is helium in her right arm that forces it to float up whenever anyone is looking for a volunteer or needs help. Barb has hosted many times and was the Area Team Chair for many years. She is currently the Hosting and Support Coordinator for her chapter and also organizes the Area Team Arrival and Fall Orientations and spearheads the Holiday Party. But the role that she enjoys the most is as one of our Sponsored Programs Coordinators where she strives to make each year better for the kids.
Besides her unlimited amount of energy and the arm filled with helium that always floats up whenever help is needed, one of the things that inspires me the most is Barb’s steadfast commitment to AFS. Many volunteers want to give back to an organization that they were a part of when they were young, but Barb wasn’t a returnee and had no affiliation with AFS growing up. Rather, AFS has a mission to help bring citizens of the world together, and she believes in that.
Over many decades now, she has worked and successfully carried the message of “Connecting Lives, Sharing Cultures” to schools and communities with hundreds of kids and families. This isn’t always easy to do. Barb lives in the south side of Chicago, which is a part of our Greater Chicago Area Team that struggles to get host families. Yet, each year with her contagious optimism, Barb will smile and say, “the south will rise again.” She challenges lower-middle-class communities rich with Irish, Italian, Mexican, and African American heritage to look at broadening their horizons, and she introduces them to culturally- and religiously-different students through interactive learning opportunities in their neighborhoods. All the while that she is spreading the AFS Mission, she lives the message by helping her teammates when someone is needed to fill in as an emergency family, liaison, or support assistant.
Like a fine wine, Barb just keeps getting better and truly is the heart and soul of the Greater Chicago Area Team.”
Thank you, Murray, for your nomination, and congratulations to Barb Kelly, the 2019 Mission Award recipient, for making a significant impact in carrying out the AFS-USA Mission through your leadership over the years.