Cleveland
2013 Director’s Community Leadership Awards
| Cleveland | Yvonne Pointer |
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The Cleveland Division honors Yvonne Pointer for her activism and dedication to service. Since 1984, she has worked to turn her 14-year old daughter’s unsolved murder from a quest to find the suspect into a life of service and inspiration to thousands of people. Ms. Pointer established the Gloria Pointer Scholarship Fund in memory of her daughter and has raised more than $20,000 to assist underprivileged students with college tuition. Internationally, she funds the Gloria Pointer Teen Movement in Ghana, West Africa to pay educational fees for disadvantaged youth. Currently, the organization is building a school that will be named in honor of her daughter. As a woman of faith, Ms. Pointer ministers to numerous Ohio inmates and inspired a group of inmates to raise nearly $1,000 from their prison jobs to buy bicycles for children in Ghana. Ms. Pointer has organized support groups such as Parents Against Child Killing to help other parents like herself. She also established Positive Plus—an organization designed to help women overcome setbacks and increase self-confidence—and Midnight Basketball—a league created to offer young men an alternative to violence and crime. Ms. Pointer has received numerous honors and is a recipient of the 908th Point of Light award, presented by former President George W. Bush. |