Carrying on a family tradition, this brand New Elfun had only to look at her late Father for the inspiration to give back in her community, and model the spirit of volunteerism for her 6 children who join her and her husband in many activities. In her short time of being an Elfun, she has become a vital member of the local chapter board, along with leading and participating in many projects, resulting in over 200 hours of volunteerism time, and working on projects from Soup Kitchens, Habitat for Humanity, to being a Susan B Komen Race for the Cure Walker. Listing all of the organizations would likely keep us in this room for quite some time, by my count, she has worked with, led or participated in 41 different organizations projects, events or day to day activities, maintaining continuing volunteerism for 11 years and still counting with many of them.

One event stands out, because it started as an annual fundraising walk to raise funds for the Adventure for Wish Kids program, where proceeds are used to support programs which benefit children who are suffering from chronic or terminal illnesses, and now is shaping into a long term partnership which will expand from a one day event to a long term commitment of providing volunteers for monthly outings and activities that directly benefit seriously and terminally ill children and their families.

Congratulations to Amy Hart, of the Cincinnati Chapter on being the 2004-2005 New Elfun Of The Year.

Retiring from the GE Company nearly two decades ago, this recipient might have thought he was going to gain some much-deserved leisure time. That was not to be the case. In 1993 he became The Director of the Community Volunteer Service Center, embarking on a new career. During his time at the helm of the Center, he helped to increase the number of enrolled volunteers and the number of community agencies in which GE volunteers continue to make an impact even in 2005.

Feeling the need in 1996 to become more involved in community activities and open the volunteer center up to new ideas, this senior relinquished his Tenure at the Center, and began volunteering directly at agencies within his community. Since that time, he now spends roughly 1200 hours a year working with such agencies as the serving on the board at Home Of The Innocence, an agency that provides services to abused, neglected and medically fragile children whose families are unable to provide the 24-hour-a-day skilled nursing care which they desperately need, volunteers at the American Red Cross, working on Disaster Relief Teams, assisting at Blood Drives, volunteers with Cabbage Patch Settlement House which provides day care services for young children of low to middle income families and served with the Exploited Children's Help Organization, whose focus is reducing the incidence and trauma of child victimization and exploitation of children.

Congratulations to Lyle Spalding, from the Louisville Chapter on being the 2004-2005 Elfun Senior Of The Year.

For many people in this Elfun's region, with his dedication and passion, he epitomizes the spirit of volunteerism. In one year, he has developed partnerships with "The Future Youth Home for the street children (RMD) at the University of Parahyangan and the British Council Education. When the Tsunami hit Indonesia, this Elfun was instrumental in gathering people and collecting donations of clothing and food to send to the victims of the disaster. He was one of two volunteer coordinators in the "Care for Indonesia" movement that was formed to help Aceh open it offices and warehouses to help the victims of the Tsunami get some relief from the devastation, including visiting the area twice over the past year with Habitat for Humanity. In addition, he also participates in almost every volunteer effort or initiative in his local Elfun Chapter, he mentor's children as well as being chapter chair for the past two years. One special story involves his commitment to working with street children. One such child he mentored became book review winner, held by Keenan Institute of Private Enterprises and Bina Antar Budaya, that included a jury made up on judges from the professional and academic fields.

Congratulations to Dodong Cahyono, from the Jakarta Chapter for his passion and commitment to volunteerism, on being the 2004-2005 recipient of the Jack Welch Regular Elfun Award.

Building on the inspiration of Harlem Children's Zone during the Global Volunteers meeting in 2004, this team returned to their home area and decided to re-focus their energy from making the best schools in their region - which happened to be the most convenient - better, to working with schools where students needed the very basics. The GPA at this school remains below 1.0. With the help of the GE Volunteers, the school completed a professional needs assessment that pointed to the need to better develop real life science applications for the students.

With the help of an Electric Insurance Grant and STG monies, this team has in one year partnered with Evans Middle School to build 3 state of the art weather labs, launched JA in the school for the first time, held an "Imagination Day' launched a "Wall of Success", and currently are in the process of helping to build the "Thomas Edison Outdoor Learning Center".

Congratulations to the Evans Middle School Team from the Ohio Valley Chapter for giving so much of their time to help better their community and on being the 2004-2005 Elfun Team Of The Year.

In 2003, the suicide rate among people older than 60 in Hong Kong was 27%, translating to one elderly person taking their own life every 33 hours. The top 3 reasons for suicide among the elderly was determined to be Illness, Low Self Esteem or depression, and loneliness. In true GE Imagination at Work spirit, the China Hong-Kong chapter created a joint project that partnered GE Money, Elfuns and Hong Kong Christian Society, to beautify an Elderly Hostel in Aberdeen Hong Kong, a government housing estate where 100 elderly people live primarily by themselves without family around them. Through a program that the China Hong Chapter developed called "Elderly Home Beautification", the chapter attracted over 104 volunteers, that included Elfuns and their families, provided 554 man hours that were dedicated to painting, gardening and teaching computer skills to the residents. Their own children were able to gain a better understanding, compassion and respect of the elderly from participating.

Since the completion of the project, the caregivers at the center have seen an improvement in both the physical and psychological well being of the residents. They attribute this mainly to the residents developing new hobbies, such as gardening, improved self-esteem, appreciation for better living standards, playing video games and surfing the web which connects them to a world far beyond their walls.

Congratulations to China’s Hong Kong chapter as this year's recipients of the 2004-2005 Golden Elm Project Supporting Senior Citizens in the Community Award.

Starting with an essay contest, children in the 7th grade, 13 years old, were asked to answer the question "Imagine the Impact: How I Can Make a Difference in My Community". The students were to write up to 2000 words and imagine they had a budget of $500. Over 100 entries were sent in. The key to this was not just the essay portion of the contest, but this chapter would also have Elfun Volunteers and the student helping to make their idea a reality. The winning essays and projects completed included beautifying local parks, mentoring homeless elementary school age children, purchasing a community center water fountain, building a dugout for a girls' softball team, helping senior citizens, conducting a community book drive, organizing a food drive to aid a local food pantry.

Congratulations to the Schenectady Chapter for doing so much in their community and on being the 2004-2005 Golden Elm North American Location winner.

One day, 60 volunteers, that included 22 Elfun Chapter leaders from Europe, came together and embarked on a very ambitious "changing rooms" or "trading places" project. This project also happened to be the biggest project the Ireland Chapter had attempted to date. Using a $4000 STG grant and additional GE funding the team broke into 4 groups that would spend three days preparing and painting three patient's lounge in St. John's Hospital. Utilizing not much more than brushes, high spirits and plenty of hard work, they were able to transform clinical hospital rooms into poppy fields, beaches and Celtic worlds that offers over 4500 yearly patients and visitors a calming environment to relax in during very trying times. The best summary of this project is highlighted on a scroll on the wall that reads, "To the world you may be one - but to one you are the world".

Congratulations to the Ireland chapter for being the 2004-2005 Golden Elm Europe Location winners, and thank you for all of your hard work.

December 26, 2004, is a date many around the globe will never forget. A Tsunami disaster occurred, causing a huge loss of life and the ability of many to support themselves or their families, in the Asia-Pacific region. These chapters' volunteers took it upon themselves to immediately begin helping the villages impacted with food, medicine, shelter, clothing, and many other items. Realizing that the impact to these villages would linger on for a long time, this chapter adopted two villages to work with long term, to help them rebuild the village and their lives. These villages are home to 400 families, made up of about 2000 people whose lively good is funding mainly from fishing. Working and visiting with the villagers over many months this chapter built up a comfortable working relationship with the people of the villages, which then enabled them to begin working hand in hand to put the villages back together. In the past year, they have began construction of a new primary school, installed a compound wall around a secondary school, equipping the combined physics/chemistry/biology labs with the correct devices, and conducting trauma control camps, this chapter is helping these villagers to rebuild their lives.

Congratulations to the India-Chennai chapter for being the 2004-2005 Golden Elm Asia Location winners, and thank you for all of your hard work.

This chapter's projects have benefited over 23,000 people in their communities. Their main focus when choosing projects is to minimize the basic community's basic needs, by providing food and clothes. Projects in this chapter have included 160 volunteers collecting gifts for poor children who live in charity housing organizations, holding rallies to support various organizations, 60 people donating blood, 106 volunteers collecting, distributing 1.7 tons of clothes in 1.5 months and collecting 40 tons of food for 22,000 people in Brazil.

Congratulations to the Brazil-Sao Paulo Chapter for being the 2004-2005 Golden Elm Latin America Location winners, and thank you for all of your hard work.

In an area surrounded by blight, drug dealers, and gangs there is a beacon of light created by a partnership with GE Volunteer's and Nurani Dunia Foundation called "Learning House of the Proclamation Community". This center serves 1600 families whose jobs include low paid labor, drivers and the running of small kiosks. The goal of the learning house is to empower and improve the quality of the lives of the members in the community, they are able to do this with GE Volunteers mentoring 220 students on the English language, computer skills, hydra-phonic cultivation and silk screening skills. The GE Volunteers also work to provide free medication and Aids training to better engage the community in taking proactive action in maintaining their health.

Congratulations to the Jakarta Chapter for giving so much of their time to help better their community and on being the 2004-2005 Golden Elm - Capacity Building in the Community for a Project with Volunteering Partner.

Improving the environment has become a man focus for the volunteers of this chapter. In 2004 a joint venture began between the Murcia Regional Government and GEAM Cartagena to preserve environmentally sensitive and protected areas in the region. Jointly they would design and implement a project for the reforestation of the area surrounding their business. A study was done to research potential plant species by their ecological importance, keeping some objectives in mind, which included soil protection against erosion, conservation of protected species, and introducing new species following controlled techniques. After the planning was done, more work still laid in front of this chapter. 255 GE Volunteers basically began the daunting task of planting a forest. Starting with 2 months pf preparing the land and selecting 10,000 plants this group of volunteers reforested over 32 acres of land, and we are glad to report the plants are thriving.

Congratulations to the Spain-Cartagena Chapter for giving so much of their time to help better their community and on being the 2004-2005 Golden Elm - Environmental Initiative.

Seeking to develop a partnership with the LSA, which consists of five major programs that provide a vast amount of services to homeless adults and families, this chapter led a brainstorming session to come up with a list of projects that they could work on together. By creating this menu of projects they are quickly able to match needs with volunteers.

One example of a quick turn around project occurred when eight corporate auditors called the Lynn plant and asked for a project that they could do, two days prior to the date they had available to do a project. This chapter was able to look at their menu of needs and was able to quickly sign up the auditors to rehabilitate an apartment at the LSA Transitions program.

By using this menu of available projects, this chapter in one year, has completed 24 projects with their new partner LSA.

Congratulations to the Greater Boston Chapter on being the winner of the 2004-2005 Golden Elm - Community Outreach Program - Large chapter.

This chapter continues to help push the GE bar higher for other volunteer organizations around the Globe. With amazing passion, they continue to grow their current partnerships and create new imaginative ways of helping them. In addition to maintaining solid relationships with current partners, during the Elfun year 2004-2005 this chapter started a new partnership with Armagh, a second stage shelter that provides long term housing, counseling and development for survivors of domestic abuse. In one year they have already executed five projects and recently received a $6500 dollar Elfun Community Foundation grant to be used in developing a GE Empowerment Center at Armagh, which will be used to create a multi-functional, multi-media training and development center.

Congratulations to the Canadian Central Chapter on being the winner of the 2004-2005 Golden Elm - Community Outreach Program - Medium chapter.

This chapter identified their objectives early in the 2004-2005 Elfun year by first identifying their strengths and matching those to the needs in the community. These objectives included greater cross business participation, increased volunteer hours by 40 percent, and enhanced a focus on education, youth and the environment, in addition to utilizing GE employee's professional skills.

In one year they have,

• Increased volunteerism by 45 percent to reach 16,000 hours
• Completed 450 projects with 3900 volunteers
• Finished 116 of those projects in one day

Almost 75 percent of their total GE employee base of roughly 5000 participated in some kind of volunteer project in the past year. When they were not doing projects they also managed to add a new community partner that does research on finding a cure for cancer, raised over $100,000 U.S. dollars for various organizations and used a $100,000 U.S. Dollar GE Foundation grant to help fund a variety of large scale programs in literacy, welfare assistance, school facilities and goods donations.

Congratulations to the Australia-New Zealand Chapter on being the winner of the 2004-2005 Golden Elm - Community Outreach Program - Small chapter.

Three years ago, 40 volunteers began working in a community school where 25% of families with children under 18 are below the poverty level. Working with the principal of this school, they established a program for student in grades 3 through 5 (ages 8 through 10), which focused on reading, comprehension and science. They engaged the teachers to help develop mentor training, mentee selection, scheduling, communications and identifying needs of the students.

These mentors, once matched to a student, meet one-on-one on a weekly basis with the mentee, during the regular school year. At the end of the year, both the mentee and the mentor move up with each other to the next grade level, fostering a long, trusting relationship. To further help the students further connect with the mentors they have created programs that have involve Parents through "Meet the Mentors" events, Student readings, and social gatherings at the school. Taking the mentoring a step further they host annual field trips to GE Global Research so that the students can learn about their Mentors professions and have created a Science and Engineer club for Future Scientists and Engineers Club at the school, holding weekly meetings, that allow 20 students to make and complete experiments, projects, develop teamwork skills and learn new concepts in engineering and science.

All of their activities have produced exciting results. The schools grades have significantly improved in Grade 4 English Language Arts from a below average score of 127 in the first year to 148 in the current year.

Congratulations to the Zoller School Mentoring Team from the Schenectady Chapter on being the 2004-2005 Golden Elm winners for Education Initiative.

This chapter has logged over 1000 hours with a program created entirely by volunteers that extends the regular curriculum in a school and expands the knowledge of the students who enroll. These classes include English Language, Computer Skills and Portuguese to 100 children from local near the GE Brazil Headquarters. Twenty-six volunteers spend personal time; including Saturdays to cover topics that the schools do not have time to cover. These additional classes enable these students to enter the job market with a higher degree of proficiency than other students entering the same job market, which enables them to obtain jobs that they normally would not have been qualified and they have a higher scale of pay.

Congratulations to the Brazil - Sao Paulo Chapter on being the winner of the 2004-2005 Golden Elm - Education Initiative - Medium chapter.

Seeing significant challenges such as budget cuts ad school closings in their area, this chapter stepped in to help prevent this happening to one elementary school. They chose to do this by helping this school improve their overall scores in two subjects, English Language Arts and Mathematics. Eleven volunteers committed to spending 2 hours each week to mentor 42 students, all 4th graders (9 year olds). Their task was to help them learn how to read and solve math problems. Collectively these 11 volunteers have given 610 hours of volunteer service and it shows in the metrics. Test scores have been improving by leaps and bounds, before mentoring began 45 percent of the students passed the state exam. After the first year of mentoring, 76 percent passed the exam, last years 90 percent of the students either met or exceeded the state standards and were recognized with highest honors for the most improved test scores in New York State.