Program Creator Jascia Robinson Receives AARP Award

The AARP With Our Youth! Award goes to seniors who volunteer their time to help young people.

Presenting the award to Jascia Robinson at the Annual Think Smart, Stay Safe banquet is Betty Bourquein of the Dearborn County Retired Teachers Association. Photo provided.

(Dearborn County, Ind.) - Jascia Robinson was recently awarded the national With Our Youth! Award from AARP.  .

The AARP With Our Youth! Award is a national recognition of local volunteers who work tirelessly with young people.  The program was established in 1997 to provide opportunities to address the needs of youth and the broader community.

Robinson has written and developed the Think Smart, Stay Safe program with over sixty volunteers in southeastern Indiana who go into the local schools to teach fourth and fifth graders about their safety at home and school, on the Internet, with strangers, and elsewhere.  Working with the Indiana State Police, she updates kids as young as second grade to strategies to cope with dangerous situations.  Co-leader Cynthia Griffith says, “Jasica is the ‘energizer bunny.’  She works tirelessly to keep the PATHS school programs going smoothly.  She cares deeply about all of the people she works with in these programs.”

Carolyn Stroup, a former Think Smart, Stay Safe Leader, recalls when the Directions program, which included Think Smart, Stay Safe and Kids of the Block looked to be doomed, Jascia explored avenues to insure that the children in the five counties who received these program would not be denied that education.  “From what looked to be an end came the beginning of PATHS sponsored by Highpoint Health (formerly Dearborn County Hospital) and the very successful continuation and expansion of these programs.”

Judy Mosier, former Dearborn County Retired Teacher’s Community Service Chair, says “Jasica is a person passionate about ministry, as her volunteers well reflect.”  A big bundle of energy, Jascia has served as youth leader for her church since sometime in the early 90’s.  There she has taken a group on a servant event every year.  They have worked in Alaska, California, Idaho, Texas, Iowa, Minnesota, Florida, Baltimore, New Orleans, and in Appalachia.  Every third year the group attends a National Youth Gathering.  She teaches a high school Bible class each Sunday, which includes a monthly activity.  This group works with the Matthew 25 Ministries a couple of times a year.  The attend Christian concerns, sponsor a family at Christmas, do service for the congregation, help senior citizens with shores, cook, and service meals for special occasions such as Easter.  Occasionally a group of college students will spend the night at the church while visiting the nearby Creation Museum.  These high schoolers provide hospitality and meals.  Fund-raisers require a huge chunk of time planning, shopping, cooking, and working the Aurora Farmers’ Fair lunch stand.

In addition to working with the youth at church, Jascia leads a women’s ministry in a weekly Bible study.  She leads volunteers to prepare and serve the Fourth Street Supper four or five times a years.  Each year she organizes some project such as sewing quilts for Lutheran World Relief, sewing and packing school backpacks, or Operation Christmas Child.  She helps the women in the church prepare and serve funeral dinners as needed.

Jascia loved volunteering with Kicks for Kids, a charity founded by former Bengals kicker Doug Pelfrey which provided opportunities for less fortunate children.  This organization, now no longer in existence, gave Jascia the opportunity to take kids from our local schools to participate in ranch activities, Reds games, Bengals’ training camp, games, play, ballets, and other activities.

Jasica Robinson truly represents the spirit of volunteerism that so many retired teachers subscribe to without any expectation of award or recognition. Please consider recognition of this wonderful lady and the work that she so unselfishly does.