Across Texas, people have spent years — sometimes decades — quietly doing the work that holds communities together. On March 11, the state finally said thank you.
First Lady Cecilia Abbott and the OneStar Foundation announced the recipients of the 42nd Annual Governor’s Volunteer Awards in Austin, recognizing individuals, families, corporations, and organizations whose volunteer efforts have reshaped lives throughout the Lone Star State. The honorees will be celebrated at a reception during National Volunteer Month in April at the Texas Governor’s Mansion — a fitting venue for an occasion this long in the making.
“I am honored to recognize this year’s Governor’s Volunteer Awards recipients as Texans whose commitment to service is making a lasting difference,” First Lady Abbott said in the announcement. It’s a sentiment that, given the breadth of this year’s honoree list, doesn’t feel like a formality.
A Legacy Measured in Decades
Four recipients earned the Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award — the evening’s highest individual honor — and the numbers behind their stories are genuinely staggering. Larry Dolan of Dallas has spent nearly three decades advocating for more than 100 children through Dallas CASA since 1997, while also mentoring the next generation of volunteers coming up behind him. Dave Freriks of Lubbock has served almost as long as Disaster Services Coordinator for The Salvation Army, supporting close to 700,000 people and raising over $5 million along the way.
Then there’s Darrell Rodenbaugh of Plano, who spent more than 19 years with North Texas Performing Arts and grew it into an operation that now serves over 11,000 students annually across five locations. And Timothy Stroud of Houston, who founded the Killeen Police Department Law Enforcement Assistance Fund in 2006, has channeled more than $1.4 million in support to law enforcement families — and somehow also manages to deliver over 11,000 Thanksgiving meals every year. Some people, it turns out, just don’t stop.
Chris Bugbee, President and CEO of OneStar Foundation, put it plainly. “These awardees demonstrate the extraordinary impact that service can have not only on communities, but on the people who serve alongside one another,” he noted, adding that their example is designed to inspire even more Texans to get involved.
Young, Rising, and Already Making Noise
What about the next generation? Asvini Thivakaran of Round Rock, recipient of the First Lady’s Rising Star Award, is already well ahead of the curve. She collected over 65,000 batteries — personally — which inspired a city-wide recycling program that has since diverted more than 100,000 batteries from landfills. She also mentors over 100 students through her initiative, Electrify Your Thoughts. She’s young. The work isn’t.
When Disaster Strikes, These People Show Up
Several of this year’s awards carry a particular weight given the string of floods and natural disasters that have hammered Texas communities in recent years. John R. Dunn, Jr. of Kerrville earned the Volunteer of the Year Award for his role leading recovery efforts after the devastating July 4 flood — securing over $10 million in funding and mobilizing volunteers for home repairs across the region. That kind of coordination doesn’t happen by accident. It takes someone who refuses to walk away.
Ark of Highland Lakes of Marble Falls received the Community Champion Award for work that stretches back to post-2018 flood recovery. In 2025, the organization launched Valley View Village and trained 840 volunteers in the wake of that year’s flooding. Similarly, BOUNCE Student Disaster Recovery — operating statewide — earned the Rebuild Texas Disaster Impact Award for deploying over 880 students for home repairs over 12 years, including critical work following Hurricane Beryl.
Families, Corporations, and Community Builders
The Volunteer Family of the Year Award went to Oscar, Yolanda, and Adrian Cisneros of El Paso, who have spent 18 years volunteering with Project RAP to support children affected by trauma — a commitment driven, in part, by their son Alex. It’s the kind of story that makes the word “volunteer” feel inadequate.
On the corporate side, three organizations earned the Corporate Champion Award. TeamCITGO of Houston logged 9,074 volunteer hours in 2025, contributed to 846 causes, and redistributed over 2.3 million pounds of food — all in a single year, and part of a 30-year track record. Kendra Scott of Austin brought more than 12,000 Gives Back events and 9,000 volunteer hours in 2025, plus raised $500,000 in flood relief through programs like Kendra Cares and Yellow Library. And KENS 5, San Antonio’s Own leveraged its media platform through mentorship programs and its Stuff The Bus school supply drive, reaching 5.9 million impressions and equipping 140 schools in 2024 alone.
The NiHao Food Bank Initiative of Keller, another Community Champion honoree, has delivered nearly 3 million meals since 2021, helped push HB 26 into law, and raised the equivalent of 120,000 meals in 2026. Lifelong Learning with Friends of Austin took home the Education Champion Award for inclusive programming that has engaged over 700 adult learners with disabilities and 1,600 University of Texas student volunteers since 2010.
Finally, Nicole Gabler of Houston received the AmeriCorps Legacy of Service Award. Her service began with AmeriCorps SWIFT between 2013 and 2015 and never really ended — she now supports children at Make-A-Wish and leads initiatives through the Junior League of Houston. Some habits, apparently, are worth keeping.
More Than a Ceremony
Still, it’s worth asking what an awards ceremony actually accomplishes. The floods still happened. The children still needed advocates. The meals still had to be cooked and delivered. These honorees didn’t do the work for recognition — most of them were already years deep before anyone thought to give them a plaque.
But visibility matters. Events like this one have a way of nudging people off the sidelines, of making service feel less abstract and more like something a regular Texan might actually do. That, perhaps, is the real point — not just to honor the few, but to quietly dare the rest of us to try.
