Volunteer of the Year

Each year, one C&S employee is honored for outstanding service to the community. Nominees are selected from employees who participate in the Dollars for Doers program. 

 C&S 2011 VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR: Dawna Cardenas

The C&S 2011 Volunteer of the Year was awarded to Dawna Cardenas. Dawna, a C&S employee since 2006, works as a Demand Planner in our Headquarter offices in Keene.

For the past six years, Dawna has dedicated thousands of hours of her time to the American Cancer Society (ACS), specifically to the Relay for Life in Keene. As the Chair of the event's planning committee, Dawna works year-round coordinating every detail of this 18-hour overnight fundraiser, from promotion, logistics, and entertainment to her the part of the evening she finds most moving: lighting remembrance luminaria honoring loved ones lost to cancer. Dawna's commitment to the ACS comes from the loss of her beloved grandmother during her teen years, "Volunteering for the ACS gives me a way to help fight back and find a cure for cancer. When you're really committed to a cause you find the time to give."

Dawna became a candidate for the C&S Volunteer of the Year award by submitting a C&S Dollars for Doers application. A panel of company employees rated each application for spirit of volunteerism, leadership and the desire to make a difference in people's lives. Through the Dollars for Doers program, nonprofit organizations benefit twice, once from the C&S employee's contribution of time, and again from a C&S matching contribution of $1 per hour volunteered, to a maximum of $1,000.