The Stoa Servant Heart Award
Beginning in the 2020–2021 season, the Stoa Board of Directors provided recognition to both individuals and clubs growing in their character and speaking skills through the Servant Heart Award. We hope this award will inspire all Stoa students and clubs to reach out and share their skills to “change the world for Christ.” Some ideas for serving include:
- Offer free speech or debate workshops
- Entertain at nursing homes
- Speak at organization meetings
- Visit shut-ins
- Evangelize, or engage in other acts of kindness within your community, city, state, nation, or the world.
Our 2022 club category winner was Legacy Speech Club from San Jose, CA. Club members partnered with Star Kids, a ministry that serves ethnic immigrant children, to develop a speech curriculum and provide teaching & coaching for speech skills development of elementary aged children.
The Individual Category winner was Adelyn Janssen from St. Louis, Missouri. Adelyn partnered with Christian Friends of New Americans which is an outreach ministry to immigrants and refugees in the St. Louis area. Their mission is to develop relationships with new Americans and share the Gospel through caring words and actions. Adelyn tutored children in reading comprehension, robotics, and other subjects sharing Christ’s love as she taught.
How can you get involved?
Identify a service opportunity you or your club can participate in that uses public speaking skills…and start serving! Then document your experience through pictures or videos.
Here is the process:
- Participate in a service opportunity that uses your speaking skills.
- Create a 3–5 minute video explaining whom you help, how you use the skills learned in Stoa, and the short- and long-term impact of the service. You can create a video compilation of varied clips, a single video recording, or multiple photos with voice-over. Be creative!
- A fellow club leader or a club parent needs to nominate each club award participant. Any Stoa coach, parent, alumni, or fellow Stoa student can nominate an individual award participant.
- The nominator must submit the Servant Heart video and include the name of the nominated individual or club, and their own name.
- Each individual shown in the video must submit a video release form.
- Submissions are due by the 15th of March and we will announce the winner(s) at NITOC.
- Please submit videos and release forms to servantheart@stoausa.org.
- The Stoa Executive Director and the Stoa Board will evaluate each individual or club video on the following criteria:
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- Positive, Christ-like impact
- Use of speaking skills
- Overall community outreach
At NITOC, the individual and club award recipients will receive stage recognition. The Stoa Board will also evaluate and determine overall winners selected from the monthly award recipients. Overall individual and club winners will each receive a certificate, a cash award, and a Servant Heart trophy.
We encourage you to be creative in your selection of opportunities and your submission. Think about the impact your words and actions have on those around you and how you can use your gifts and talents to serve your community. We look forward to seeing your submissions!
If you have any questions, please contact Angela Childress at servantheart@stoausa.org.