Jill Leach Honored for Community Service at the May 2023 Brunswick Town DAR Meeting

 

Brunswick County resident Jill Leach received NSDAR’s Community Service Award for her nonprofit Birthday Wishes Ministry for children. She was nominated by Brunswick Town Chapter NSDAR, and presented with the award at the chapter’s May meeting.

The organization teams with Matthew’s Ministry to provide birthday gifts for children in financially challenged families. The children are selected through the county’s Backpack Food Program and the gifts are distributed in these backpacks by the school during the child’s birthday week.

Leach’s idea quickly garnered community support, and she applied for 501 ©(3)non-profit status in February 2021. Her application was approved, and she has held numerous fundraisers by auctioning off her own beautiful artwork with 100% of the proceeds going to the charity. She has also received support from various clubs in the Winding River Plantation community where she lives.

During the first year, 75 students at two elementary schools benefited from her kindness. This year, she has helped approximately 500 children in nine Brunswick County Elementary schools. Her hope is to expand into additional schools and possibly foster care organizations.

The idea came to Leach during the Christmas season when she and her husband buy gifts for young families in the area. One year, a mother asked if they would mind wrapping one of the gifts in birthday wrap as she had not yet bought her young son a birthday gift and was going to be short on her rent for the month. The idea quickly became a reality with the guidance of Leach and her husband.

Daughters of the American Revolution is a service organization founded in 1890 for women who can prove direct, blood lineage from a Revolutionary War Patriot. The organization promotes patriotism, education, and historic preservation.

DAR is a nonprofit, nonpolitical volunteer organization with more than 185,000 members in 3000 chapters across the world. There are more than 100 chapters in North Carolina. Members across the nation contributed more than five million service hours in 2022.

The Brunswick Town Chapter has more than 175 members, several of whom descend from Patriots who lived in Brunswick County while fighting for our country’s independence. The chapter’s membership descends from more than 700 proven Patriots from the original thirteen colonies.

 

                 Jill Leach holds the award certificate presented by the Brunswick Town Chapter