Roses to Addison Mansfield, a rising freshman at East Chapel Hill High School, for raising $3,000 for UNC’s Comprehensive Cancer Support Program’s Milk Buddy Program.

This program offers free cases of high calorie, high protein nutrition supplement to patients at the N.C. Cancer Hospital. These supplements help patients maintain their weight, provides protein necessary for healing and helps keep them strong enough to be able to continue their treatment without delays.

Addison first learned about this program when her father, James Mansfield, was undergoing cancer treatment at the N.C. Cancer Hospital.

In her many trips to the hospital, Addie saw how important the nutrition supplement was to him and to other patients.

Purchasing these supplements out in the community can be very costly, adding another expense to many families already strapped by the financial challenges of cancer treatment.

Addie’s efforts, in honor and loving memory of her father, enables patients at N.C. Cancer Hospital to have access to this much needed nutritional support. Thank you, Addie, for uniting friends, family, and our community in such a meaningful way.

Roses to the Carrboro Police Department for the “House Check” service that they make available to Carrboro residents.

When residents are going to be out of town for an extended period, the police will visit the resident's house on a periodic basis to assure that doors are locked and that windows are secure. Carrboro residents can sign up for this service online.

The stepped-up police presence in the neighborhood serves as a deterrent to would-be thieves and also serves as a reminder to all neighbors to remain alert to the presence of strangers around the absent neighbor's house.

Upon returning from a three-week trip recently, one Carrboro resident was pleased to learn from his neighbors that a police cruiser often visited the neighborhood while the house was empty and that officers regularly walked a foot patrol around the vacant house to confirm that it was secure and safe.

Roses to Sarah Heckel, a fifth grader at Morris Grove Elementary School, whose entry in the National PTA Reflections contest was named one of the national winners and was shown on a large-screen television screen in New York City’s Times Square.

The National PTA’s Reflections program challenges students to create art inspired by a specific theme. The 2012 contest theme was “Diversity Means...”

Sarah had only to look at the wooded landscape around her to find inspiration for her artwork, a composite photograph in the shape of a tree, incorporating images of many different types of trees.

Maples, oaks and dogwoods may grow to different sizes, bear leaves of different shapes and have bark of different textures, but what they share is more important than those differences: they are all trees, and they all belong.

It’s the same, Sarah reasoned, with people.

“Just like many different varieties of trees are important to a healthy ecosystem,” she wrote in her artist’s statement, “people of many races, religions, heritages, and cultures are important to a diverse and healthy human world.”

Well said, Sarah.