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Jefferson Star for Community Service Goes to HBI Educator
Brian Coller, the coordinator of the Home Builders Institute's Project CRAFT/Orlando, was recognized by the Orlando media on Sept. 9 with the Jefferson Star Award for Outstanding Community Service.
The Jefferson Star Awards were founded in 1972 when Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Sen. Robert Taft, Jr. and Sam Beard established the American Institute for Public Service to create a “Nobel Prize” honoring community and public service at the national and local levels.
Among the many winners of the national award are Thurgood Marshall, Alan Greenspan, Henry Kissinger, Arthur Ashe, Caesar Chavez, Oprah Winfrey, Paul Newman, Bill Gates and Lance Armstrong.
In each of 90 U.S. communities, five or six local awards are generally given out each year by Jefferson’s 150 local media partners — including major newspapers and television and radio stations. The communities then send one local winner to Washington, D.C. to compete for the national awards.
Coller and his staff in Orlando are dedicated to helping young people turn their lives around through trades training, a high school diploma and job placement in the residential construction industry.
Community service is a key component of Project CRAFT’s curriculum, allowing students to sharpen their trade skills as they take responsibility for improving their neighborhoods. Project CRAFT programs frequently work with Habitat for Humanity and other charitable organizations in the building industry.
In his nomination for the Jefferson Star Award, Coller was cited for establishing a partnership with the Ivey Lane office of the Center for Drug Free Living that has augmented traditional Project CRAFT training with education on regimented life skills and HIV awareness and counseling on substance abuse.
“It was a great honor to receive the award, and I am grateful that HBI is so well respected here in Florida,” said Coller. “Project CRAFT has been operational here for many years, and it’s great to see this program recognized for all the good that it does for our communities.”
For more information on Project CRAFT, e-mail John Hattery at HBI, or call him at 800-795-7955 x8916.
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