Impact Stories

George Cornick

2023 · Uganda

AF

EFM George Cornick volunteered at the Refuge of Hope refugee center, mentoring youth and teaching life skills and job interview techniques, and helping form a step dancing group. He obtained grant funding from the J. Kirby Simon Trust to benefit the Bless a Child Foundation, which focuses on pediatric cancer patients, and mobilized dozens of embassy community volunteers to paint buildings, create a vegetable garden, and build a green space for youth. He also organized multiple clothing, book, and toy drives for Afghan refugees and for Ugandans during an Ebola outbreak.

Jerry Case

2023 · Ireland

EUR

Biking enthusiast and EFM Jerry Case worked with the owners of RiverCycles bike shop in Dublin to launch the Good Bike Project, which has refurbished more than 2,000 used bicycles and distributed them to displaced Ukrainian refugees in need. The project now reaches almost every county in Ireland through a partnership with Dynamic Parcel Distribution.

Daniela Garcia

2023 · El Salvador

WHA

Since arriving at post in 2021, EFM Daniela Garcia has been the driving force behind the embassy community's support of children at Mi Casa orphanage. She mobilized the embassy and Salvadoran community to raise funds for a building expansion to house additional orphan girls and led the creation of a new safe home for pregnant teen orphans, many of whom have been victims of serious abuse. She developed counseling and support programs and a training program to teach soon-to-be-mothers how to effectively care for themselves and their babies.

Mandy Brown

2023 · Qatar

NEA

EFM Mandy Brown has been widely recognized for her work with Afghan refugees in Doha, Qatar, partnering with the “Doha Do-Gooders” and often using her own monetary resources to purchase items she uses to teach women and children marketable new skills and creative abilities. Brown is a recipient of the J. Kirby Simon Foreign Service Trust grant. She also provided extensive support to the local American school and Qatar Little League.

Connie Pearson

2024 · Israel

NEA

During her time as an EFM in Jerusalem, Connie Pearson worked to bring different communities together. Following the October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks, Pearson organized catered lunches and dinners for overworked embassy staff, IDF soldiers, and displaced Gazan families. She volunteered to help embassy staff evacuate U.S. citizens from Israel, raised funds for IDF reserve units and families in the West Bank unable to afford food or utility payments. Her service also included providing traumatized students with school supplies, raising funds for children to go to summer camps, helping a family whose farm was destroyed by fire, and assisting a local orphanage to purchase and renovate new facilities.

Jennifer Sturgeon

2025 · Netherlands

EUR

Jennifer Sturgeon exemplifies the highest ideals of volunteerism through her leadership, creativity, and compassion across multiple countries. In Slovakia, she led the nation's largest charity initiative, raising $102,000 for nonprofits serving refugees, children, and women, and advocated for orphanages in Poland and Slovakia. Since moving to The Hague in 2023, she has strengthened community life through the American Women's Club and U.S. Embassy initiatives, organizing cultural exchanges, awareness events, and fundraising drives that have benefited soup kitchens, at-risk children, trafficking survivors, and Ukrainian families. She is a dedicated supporter of the Royal Dutch Sea Rescue Institution and advances remembrance through the Stolpersteine Project.

William “Ed” O'Bryan & Alesia Krupenikava

2023 · Turkmenistan

Bureau TBC

Husband and wife team William “Ed” O'Bryan, a Foreign Service Officer, and Alesia Krupenikava, a Professional Associate for Public Diplomacy, helped break barriers for women and girls in Turkmenistan through their work with the U.S.-based nonprofit Technovation Girls, helping it launch its program across the country. The entirely volunteer-run program sees teams of girls aged 8–18 follow a six-month curriculum to identify a problem in their community and develop a working mobile or AI application and a business plan as a solution. Since 2021, more than 350 Turkmen girls have participated in Technovation Girls' programming, and three teams have reached the semifinals of the organization's global competition.

Kristin Factor

2024 · India

SCA

EFM Kristin Factor's dedication to empowering young girls through art and education has left an indelible mark on the lives of those she has touched. In Mumbai, Factor dedicated hundreds of hours and her own funds to provide art education to a group of 25 orphaned girls at the Sharanam Shelter for Girls. She built the program from scratch, providing age-appropriate lessons to each girl and ensuring the walls of the shelter are now a canvas for the girls' newfound creativity, potential, self-esteem, and resilience.

Garrett Fraino

2024 · Brazil

WHA

EFM Garrett Fraino's remarkable service to the impoverished favelas of Rio de Janeiro made a significant impact in the lives of Brazilian youth. Through the Mais Caminhos organization (which offers free activities and English courses to youth aged 8–19), Fraino provided extensive personal tutoring and coaching to students. He reworked the organization's teaching guide, created more effective training for volunteer teachers, and bolstered the administrative structure with improvements including an attendance tracking program, a curriculum development plan, and a new tourism and hospitality training program for students.

Shirley Helm

2025 · Tajikistan

SCA

In Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Foreign Service Office Management Specialist Shirley Helm dedicated over 4,000 volunteer hours to advancing opportunities for the country's deaf community through American Sign Language (ASL) education and advocacy. She developed her own curriculum, secured grants to bring in a deaf American instructor via Zoom, and launched independent programs that transformed beginners into fluent signers. Two of her students became the first Deaf Tajiks accepted into the FLEX exchange program. She personally escorted them on their first journey to the United States to attend a Gallaudet University summer camp. Beyond the classroom, Shirley organized Deaf Awareness Week at the embassy and traveled to remote regions to train teachers and inspire young learners.

Robert & Kimberly Gudenkauf

2023 · Mongolia

EAP

Kimberly and Robert Gudenkauf's efforts to help the local animal population created a network of more than 80 volunteers, connected organizations in Mongolia and abroad, and saved the lives of many animals in Ulaanbaatar. By designing and selling merchandise, creating a GoFundMe campaign, and securing grants, the Gudenkaufs raised more than $40,000 for veterinary care and infrastructure improvements at local animal shelters. Upgrades included a water well and pump, two trailers, fencing, a residence for a shelter caretaker, and 50 insulated dog houses to help animals survive winter in the coldest capital city on earth. They also teamed with international organizations to find permanent homes in the United States and Canada for abandoned dogs. The Gudenkaufs appeared on television and in print and online media and met with high-ranking government officials to promote a bill that would create Mongolia's first animal rights law.

Andrew Richley

2024 · Montenegro

EUR

EFM Andrew Richley has played a key role in developing one of Europe's largest urban gardens into a unique resource that provides food to the hungry and allows Montenegrins to learn about sustainable agriculture. He established the Urbana Bašta Podgorica Food Forest and served as its manager, utilizing his background as an arborist and forester to map and manage the orchard while planting and growing more than 300 trees. He organized community educational events, pursued and managed funding and grants, and worked with his team to care for thousands of vegetables, shrubs, and trees. The garden's monthly food harvest has resulted in more than 250 crates of food being donated to local food banks and home delivery services.

David Bargueño

2025 · Brazil

WHA

Foreign Service Officer David Bargueño led an innovative partnership with the largest cooperative of recyclable trash pickers (“catadores”) in Latin America, representing more than 2,500 low-income families in Brasília. He mobilized a yearlong fundraising and volunteer campaign across the Embassy, American School, and the trash pickers' community, culminating with an upgrade of local recycling facilities on international volunteer day. His team procured supplies for the catadores' professional education including sewing machines, hairdresser seats, laptops, bookshelves, books, and furniture. The director of the cooperative noted that the United States was the first and only embassy to ever volunteer at the recycling center. At the end of the event, the multipurpose room was renamed “Martin Luther King, Jr. Hall” to honor the U.S. Embassy's support.

Samantha Bunch

2025 · Kenya

AF

EFM Samantha Bunch showed remarkable dedication to both the mission community and Kenya through innovative service and crisis leadership. Her Eco-Brick Initiative diverted over two tons of plastic waste into low-cost housing materials, creating a model for sustainable development. She mobilized critical support for Ginko Africa, empowering teenage mothers to continue their education, and extended vital assistance to Real Hope Community Orphanage. During the April 2023 evacuation of Embassy Khartoum families, she coordinated donations, offered comfort, and provided hands-on support to arriving evacuees.

Wiley Skaret

2025 · Colombia

WHA

EFM Wiley Skaret founded James 1, a U.S. 501(c)(3) project dedicated to providing university scholarships for the children of Colombian National Police (CNP) officers killed in the line of duty. To advance this mission, Wiley built broad coalitions of support — engaging police generals, supreme court justices, ambassadors, diplomats, corporate leaders, and victims' families. An internationally performing pianist, he launched a nationwide campaign by recording music videos across Colombia with a piano transformed into a traveling memorial, painted by a CNP graffiti artist. That piano was permanently installed at the CNP Museum in Bogotá. Through benefit concerts on two continents, national media appearances, and the creation of an international scholarship board, he elevated the cause from a local initiative to a global effort. James 1 has raised more than $100,000 and provided full or partial university scholarships to nine children of fallen officers, four of whom have now graduated.

Julie Fischer

2025 · Democratic Republic of Congo

AF

During the January 2025 Ordered Departure from U.S. Embassy Kinshasa, EFM Julie Fischer emerged as an informal leader of more than 200 evacuees, drawing on prior evacuation experience to keep the group calm and organized while coordinating with AAFSW's Evacuee Support Network to secure clothing, supplies, and a morale boost upon arrival in the United States. In Kinshasa, she volunteered at the Telema Mental Health Center, teaching art therapy to at-risk women and organizing an Embassy garden project. She served on the Board of The American School of Kinshasa, where she led governance reforms and a constitutional revision. She supported English learners at the Congo American Language Institute and, as a volunteer with African Bird Club, proofread more than 1,000 DRC bird species entries on the Birds of Africa app.