2019 Hometown Heroes
The Decatur City Commission gave out 10 Hometown Hero awards at the December DBA Holiday party. They are pictured after the presentation and include Lisa Daly & Jim Rabb, Thanh Doan, Jennifer Gonzalez, Happy Harold, Ashley Howle, Carroll Knabe, Terrie Moore, Clare Schexnyder, and Alix Wagner.
Lisa Daily and Jim Rabb
Nominated by Cathy Vogel
Lisa and Jim have volunteered with the Friends of Decatur Cemetery Tuesday “Gardening Among the Graves” gardeners for over 18 months. During that time they devoted themselves to clearing out many invasive plants particularly in Section 6, the historic African-American burial grounds. They have each faithfully logged nearly 200 hours in just about every condition Section 6 had to offer, including heat, cold, drizzle, and bugs. They’ve helped recover infrastructure and lost gravestones under tangles of vines. This work helped in the research of many burials linking the African-American history of Decatur with its Cemetery. Along with other FODC gardeners, they’ve installed plantings to help control erosion in the rolling terrain. They are truly Hometown Heroes for bringing this important but lost part of Decatur’s past to the forefront of our awareness.
Thanh Doan
Nominated by Amy Marti
Thanh Doan has selflessly managed the recreation department’s Girls’ and Boys’ Junior Tennis Teams for years. His love of the sport and dedication to the teams make him a true hero to both the players and the parents. Thanh’s initiative in promoting junior team tennis has provided a huge benefit to Decatur kids encouraging them to participate and become comfortable playing tennis matches for their school teams and in tournaments. Most importantly, the kids have fun and are enthusiastic about playing tennis. Thanh volunteers his time to attend matches, to counsel kids on how to improve their skills, and to ensure the junior teams have what they need to be successful. Thanh is a role model for the kids and his positive encouragement goes way beyond the courts. The entire team is grateful for his unyielding support. He has instilled a love of the game and touched the lives of many of Decatur’s children.
Jennifer Gonzalez
Nominated by Christina Scott and Kristin Emby
Jennifer Gonzalez has been a staple at Decatur High and in the community for over 10 years. She teaches social studies and has been formally recognized as a Teacher of the Year and a STAR teacher for her achievements. She is known for the Rock n Roll Revue (RRR) where she uses this annual rock concert to teach students leadership and organizational sales. Several years ago she and another teacher took over running the Close-Up program. With intention and grace she has shifted the number and balance of students who attend, working quietly behind the scenes with the Decatur Education Foundation to secure funding to ensure more students of color and diverse socio-economic backgrounds could attend. As she did so, the face of the program changed and the interest grew.
She began a long running Story Corp program at DHS which paired members of the community with high school students in order to encourage students to hear the stories of their neighbors. Outside of school, Gonzalez is an inaugural and active member of the Beacon Hill Alliance on Human Rights. She works with the Alliance on issues like removing confederate statues to handing out flyers in the community and most recently championing the cause of education inequality at DHS and elsewhere. She has supported the MLK, Jr. Service Project gathering students to help local residents in need.
Happy Harold
Nominated by Sherry Jackman and Angie Macon
Happy Harold spends the entire weekend volunteering during the book festival and takes on responsibilities far beyond her years. Happy is enthusiastic and willing to assist in any capacity, including dressing up as Pete the Cat. She came home from her first year at college in order to serve as stage captain for the children’s program of the Decatur Book Festival. Happy ranks in the top 1% of volunteers who are dedicated and willing to do whatever it takes to make the event successful.
Happy Harold is a true hero who gives back without needing a headline. Starting in middle school as a Girl Scout, she volunteered at Hagar House and Action Ministries. She served dinner, read to children, and assembled packages for homeless and transitional families. At age twelve, she began sewing Quilts of Valor at Intown Quilters. These quilts are sewn by hand and presented to service members and Veterans across the country. She participated in distributing quilts and organized a ceremony that recognized Decatur heroes. She also organized a bake sale and silent auction where she helped raise over $1,000 for Decatur High School’s Habitat for Humanity Club.
Happy actively volunteered at the Methodist Children’s home during high school, raised awareness and money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society selling handcrafted stationary as well as screen printing and selling t-shirts. Happy has recognized many heroes through her work with Quilts of Valor, and we celebrate the incredible work and hours of time she has given back to this community.
Ashley Howle
Nominated by Gary Menard
Ashley is a dedicated ER nurse for Emory hospital who has a history of dedicating herself to helping others, but this last year she left a mark that few will realize affected them so profoundly. While balancing her demanding work schedule in the ER with her family and community commitments, Ashley reached out to Decatur Fire for help with a project about which she was extremely passionate.
With mass shooting and violence occurring so frequently, Decatur Fire saw a need to have all of their personnel trained as Stop the Bleed instructors. Once their personnel received the training, Ashley reached out to the Georgia Region III Trauma Committee and was directed to Decatur Fire. Her vision was to reach every school within the City of Decatur and ensure that they had training and Stop the Bleed kits. She worked tirelessly to contact each individual school and assisted Decatur Fire with teaching the classes. Thanks to her efforts, every school and school bus driver is trained in Stop the Bleed skills. Hopefully we will never experience an event that will necessitate the full use of the training that Ashley implemented, but if it was ever needed, she has potentially saved countless lives. The vision, follow through and sacrifice of her personal time selflessly truly exemplify the work of a Hometown Hero.
Caroll Knabe
Nominated by Josh Becker
Carroll is a mom of boys. But that hasn’t stopped her from doing something amazing for the girls of Decatur – she singlehandedly launched Decatur’s Cub Scout Pack 4475 out of First Baptist Church of Decatur. She created this group from scratch on her own to allow Decatur girls the opportunity to benefit from participating in Cub Scouts, which only recently was opened up to membership for girls. She arranges the meetings for these girls, plans outdoor activities for them, and does whatever it takes to ensure they have a great experience with scouting. Even the number for the group is appropriate – 4475 on a phone keypad corresponds to GIRL. This next chapter of her Decatur involvement comes after she has already spent years supporting the boy scouts at First Baptist.
Terrie Moore
Nominated by Jennifer Ross
Terrie created the Decatur Prevention Initiative (DPI) and has secured funding through state and national grants to support therapeutic groups held at Decatur High, parent support programs within the Decatur Housing Authority and the creation of the Decatur Youth Action Team (DYAT). DYAT has 20 high school students who bring prevention activities to the student body and the greater Decatur community. Programs made available via Terrie’s efforts and tenacity in obtaining funding include International Overdose Vigil, World Gratitude Day, National Night Out, Red Ribbon Week, and a vaping education assembly for the DHS student body.
Terrie’s dedication to the Decatur community goes far beyond her “job” and role as a prevention specialist and securing funding for programs. She cares about the safety and health of Decatur kids, families and the community as a whole. She pushed and continued educating this community in the face of many refusing to believe or admit there were any alcohol or drug issues affecting our kids.
She built the DPI Community Prevention Alliance Workgroup (CPAW) to represent a holistic team of professionals from educational, police, fire, medical, mental health and prevention backgrounds. She helped launch the Decatur Parent Network (DPN) to give parents a platform and resources such as the Speaker Series Events for Parents and chaperoning DPN Friday Night Live events so Decatur middle and high schoolers would have a safe, fun, and free place to hang out.
Terrie has become a part of the fabric of our community by worrying when no one else wanted to worry, by addressing difficult topics head-on and by giving 110% of herself in any way possible for decades.
Clare Schexnyder
Nominated by Amy Marti
As a response to the Parkland, FL shootings, Clare founded the National Stop School Shootings Now movement. The movement originally focused on Decatur but quickly grew into a nationwide call for action. Because of Clare’s desire to turn her grief and anger into action thousands of students across the US walked out of their classrooms in protest.
Clare was instrumental in beginning the Decatur Dinners. The idea was that 100 dinners would take place across the city and allow conversations around race and equity to begin. That initial desire turned from 100 dinners to over 140 dinners with over 1500 people participating. Claire had an emotional desire to lead others in tough conversations to make positive change in our community. Clare attended a School Leadership Team meeting at Renfroe Middle School and voiced her concern over the lack of composting and recycling in our school system. Clare partnered with the SLT and this year a composting trial took place over a 2-week period at the school. The school went from throwing away 40 bags of trash each day to the landfill to an average of 3 bags per day. This grassroots initiative is now being considered for implementation across the entire school district.
Clare hears the needs of our community and doesn’t shy away from determining how those needs can be met. The need could be miniscule or grand, to Clare it doesn’t matter. She volunteers countless hours to our community. Her energy and enthusiasm are boundless. She goes “all-in” and is willing to be a loud voice for change. Clare is committed to making our world a better place and we are all beneficiaries of that commitment.
Alix Wagner
Nominated by Lee Ann Harvey, Angela Threadgill and Brian Smith
Alix Wagner is one of those people who are born with an innate sense of leadership. She is tenacious in motivating others to also become leaders. She knows no limits in the ability to get things done. Alix joined the Decatur Youth Council during its inception four years ago. She has since become chair and has motivated others, including her sister and her classmates, to join this leadership program for high school students. Alix is creative in her problem solving skills and is a skilled communicator. She stays engaged with the other DYC members and makes certain to keep them informed. She has led the way in making sure that everyone is able to play a role in DYC projects.
Alix worked with the DYC members to develop an orchard on the Legacy Park property that provides homage to the children who resided there in the past. Alix participated in both the planning and rounding up volunteers to help with mulching on multiple occasions. Alix has influenced the growth of DYC so that new leaders can blossom from her example.
Alix is also Captain of the Decatur High School Golf Team; Section Leader or the DHS Marching Band; attended the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program last year; conducted research with Agnes Scott College students about Rhett’s syndrome in rat brains and was credited in a research paper; and is a member of the DHS National Honor Society, where she was junior class representative last year.
