This Year’s Azalea Awards

My friend Alex Rounds is in the running for an Azalea Award this year (in the Mentor category). Here’s what’s been written about him on the ballot:

Alex Rounds, a Takoma Park resident since 1985, mentors youth with kindness, grace, and humility, combining technical (carpentry and home renovation) skills with emotional support to serve local youth in local schools and grief camps and as a mentor and facilitator for over a decade in the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP). Through AVP he has recently made inroads into the Baltimore Youth Detention Center, a high-school prison. He participates in the Boys to Men mentoring program, where he is creating a yard care program that employs Takoma Park youth. Of particular note are the week-long service projects via the Appalachia Service Project, where as a team leader he guided Takoma Park student volunteers in making homes “warmer, safer, and drier,” imparting valuable carpentry skills while providing the teens with the emotional support and political perspective needed to process the systemic injustice and poverty they encountered. Alex also organized his own weekend service trips to West Virginia, where he supervised Takoma Park youth in carpentry restoration projects. Alex’s generous spirit and diligent, altruistic work are reminders of why our community is so special.

Of course, Alex doesn’t do what he does for awards. However, he’s a terrific person and it’s great to see him and his work recognized in this way.

He certainly has my vote!