It is my highest honor to nominate Mandy Motl for the 2013 Service Impact Award. She is a woman of persistence, confidence, and creativity and exemplifies all of the traits of an innovative leader who stops at nothing to help promising low-income students achieve success. Mandy has served with College Possible, a nationally growing non-profit organization dedicated to making college admission and success possible for promising low-income students since August 2012.

Mandy is currently serving her first term with College Possible as an AmeriCorps Events member and has done an amazing and phenomenal job. Many of her peers would say that she is an inspiration and they strive to embody all of the wonderful traits she embodies. Mandy’s work isn’t as glorious or as up front as most of her peers but she sees every part of her job as important and pertinent to the success of over 1600 high school students. As an Events member, her impact to our students has been invaluable. She has led and organized over 30 campus visits throughout her term with College Possible this year. Many of those campus visits were the first campus visits that our students had the opportunity to attend. This experience for our students has helped them see what it feels like to be on a college campus and gave an opportunity for them to see themselves at a college. Setting up a campus visit takes time and most people see it as a ‘simple task’ but I can say confidently that it isn’t as easy as it sounds. Mandy is in constant contact with many Admissions Counselors throughout the year; following up with them, creating memos, organizing busing, etc…which are all vital to our program and to our students. She has done an amazing and flawless job of being creative in everything she encounters.

Not only has Mandy organized campus visits that led over 1200 students to attend a campus visit, she has organized and planned one of our largest event of the year, graduation. Graduation planning takes months of planning, organizing, and collaborating with multiple departments and external venues. She was instrumental in all of the logistics, staffing, creating of resources, training, and execution of the day. This day is a day for our students to be recognized. Many of our students started this program with the goal of graduating from high school, enrolling in college, and graduating and this is the first part of their journey. Mandy made this day special for all of our students. The way she improvised when food was not arriving on time, the way bussing didn’t quite work out the way we had envisioned but yet, she smiled and made sure everything was still rolling, the way she took every step to make sure everything was as perfect as possible for our students made this moment possible. She is the ‘behind the scenes’ guru who may not get the recognition she deserves but she still remains humbled and dedicated to everything she puts her mind and heart into.

Her service along with her peers has started to help narrow the large academic achievement gaps among low income students. Mandy’s innovative mind, creativity, and commitment to service and her community has proven to be nothing but exceptional. I wholeheartedly nominate Mandy Motl for the 2013 Service Impact Award. Feel free to contact me if you have additional questions at ZVang@collegepossible.org or 651.917.3525

Sincerely,

Zer Vang