The College Career Center Consortium is pleased to announce the winner of the 2016 Paul W. Gabonay Volunteer Service Award is Mohammed Almalak, a business administration major at the University of Indianapolis. An international student who will be graduating in May 2016, Mohammed, who is known as “Mo,” has served in diverse roles at several agencies including Shepherd Community Center, the Burmese-American Community Institute (BACI), Boys & Girls Club, and SENSE Charter School. During his service at BACI, Mo helped design and train business plans for refugee women who wanted to learn how to start their own childcare businesses staffed with refugee women, enabling still other refugee mothers to work. He also assisted in BACI’s Upward College Program by mentoring and tutoring the Burmese high school students, and by helping them work on college and scholarship applications. At Shepherd Community Center, Mo helped organize and implement several donation drives for the families of the East side, and while at the Boys & Girls Club, he taught and played sports with boys and worked in after school programs. Additionally, at SENSE Charter School he helped in classes and with their food pantry.

His nominator writes:

 “Mr. Almalak has proven to be a take-charge person who is able to successfully develop plans and implement them. Often, he has demonstrated his leadership ability by working with diverse groups of people, taking leadership roles, and developing participants’ skills in problem solving and critical thinking. Overall, he has demonstrated excellent personality and professionalism. Mr. Almalak is an individual who overcomes adversity by creative and out-of-the box ideas. As an international student he has had to deal with some new challenges but his passion for serving others and impacting people's lives has been the driving force to many service experiences. He was so passionate, he got his wife to serve as well!”