Quincy girl competes for international award

MOSES LAKE - Quincy teen Meg Hirai is one of 28 girls from around the world nominated for a prestigious award presented by the Soroptimist International organization. The winners of the Violet Richardson Award, which recognizes teen girls who work to make their communities better, will be announced in May.

Hirai was the regional winner. The region encompasses Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington.

Meg received a $1,000 scholarship as the regional winner, and was given an additional $1,000 to be donated to a local service organization or charity. Hirai chose to give her money to Serve Moses Lake, where she has volunteered. But "she actually volunteers all over the place," said Janet Huber-Terry, the Soroptimist member in charge of the local nominating committee.

"A neat young lady," Serve Moses Lake Director Tim Cloyd said. Hirai's cousin, Blaine Hirai, owner of Hirai Farms, contacted Meg last summer and said he had some extra produce that she could donate, she said. Her first stop with the vegetables was Serve Moses Lake, and she also donated food to Solomon's Porch, of Wenatchee, and the backpack program in the Quincy School District.

Hirai also talked to the operators of the Double Diamond fruit processing warehouse in Quincy. They agreed to donate boxes of apples to the after-school program started at North Elementary School by Hirai and her fellow students from Moses Lake Christian Academy.

Hirai and Tristin Ebel, co-chair of the school's community service committee, devised the Friday program at North after discovering the school had lost funding for the after school activities. A pool of about 20 MLCA high school students take turns spending about two hours every Friday helping North students with their homework, playing games and having a snack. "We draw, we read, we pray," Meg said.

Hirai also is a volunteer at the Hearthstone extended care facility in Moses Lake. She ran the ice cream parlor last summer and the exercise program. She's volunteered there all winter.

In a way, it's a little work - picking up and delivering food, coming up with activities for the kids at North and the residents of Hearthstone. Hirai said she doesn't see it that way. "It's not really work. Once you start (volunteering), you can't really stop," Meg said.

"I've gotten so much out of this," she said. "It's taught me a lot of lessons." High school students who want to volunteer but don't know how to fit it into their schedules should think about making room for it, she said.

"They (the people she's met) have benefitted me more than my hour of volunteering has benefitted them."

She's talked to other students who thought they didn't have time to volunteer but took time anyway, "and they love it. Once you're there, it's just so much fun."

Hirai is a senior at MLCA, and said she hasn't decided where she will attend college.