Teen earns local, national honors for service (VIDEO)

By Michelle Chance

Humble, compassionate and generous. Most would agree that is not a fitting description for just any teenager.

However, it is for Maricopa High School sophomore Evan Grace, whose list of accomplishments within his community rivals those of many adults.

When Grace was a freshman, he was awarded the President’s Volunteer Service Award and received a letter signed by President Barack Obama.

Additionally, he received awards from his high school for his volunteer work for initiating a sock drive for military members for the Blue Star Moms of Maricopa and for his work as a youth champion for the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life.

Evan held a seat on the Maricopa Youth Council before being appointed to the Governor’s Youth Commission last year, where he later managed a toy-drive project.

Tracy Davis of Blue Star Moms said Evan held three donation drives for the group: two sock drives and one drive for toiletries. She said the first two drives were so successful she asked Evan to change the donations from socks to toiletries because the group still had so many socks from his previous drives.

She said Evan has a great sense of patriotism and even came up with the idea for the drives by himself.
“He has that selfless heart of a warrior,” Davis said. “He wants to do things to take care of other people and in this day and age that is an amazing trait in a teenager.”

Most recently, Evan became the youngest winner of the Volunteer of the Year award at the Maricopa Community Awards by the Maricopa Chamber of Commerce.

In January, Evan was named one of three winners in the national Yoplait Go Big Amazing Teen Contest.

Needless to say, this kid is a mover and shaker who is going places.

Evan said he doesn’t have a main motivator when helping others; he just likes to give back.

“Everybody needs somebody. Everybody needs support. We just need to work together,” Evan said.

The 15-year-old honor roll student said he doesn’t believe there is enough of that caring spirit in the world. Evan said more people getting involved in community events could be a solution.

“There needs to be more of that, especially now because there [are] a lot of hateful things going on in the world, so we need to fix that,” he said.

Evan plans to attend Arizona State University after high school and pursue a career in engineering.

Parents Don and Merry Grace moved their three boys to Maricopa from San Antonio, Texas, to follow Don’s work at Intel.

Merry said Evan’s sweet disposition has been apparent since birth: “My nickname for him is ‘my sweet angel’ because from the get-go the nurses would come in and fight to hold him because he was the kind of baby that would nuzzle you when you held him, and that sweetness has just stuck with him.”

She said one example of Evan’s kind personality was illustrated when he befriended a student in special education.

After the friendship blossomed, Merry said Evan began volunteering in the special education classroom one or two days a week without consulting his parents or teachers beforehand. He would listen to students in the classroom and read to them.

“That’s a pretty good sum of who Evan is. He has got that caring characteristic,” she said.

Although Evan initiates friendships and programs to help his fellow community members, he is quite shy in person.

Merry Grace said his humble nature is most apparent when he receives praise for his accomplishments.

“He doesn’t like to say it is all him,” she said. “He always gives praise to others.”

Davis agreed: “In this fast-paced society where everybody talks about a sense of entitlement and it’s all about ‘me, me, me,’ Evan definitely breaks that mold.”

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