On December 14, 2021, WeTHRIVE!℠ held a Facebook Live event to announce the winners of the 2021 WeTHRIVE! Community Champion Awards. (If you missed it, you can view the short video here.) This week, we’re introducing you to the winners! Here’s our Day 3 feature…
Andrew Pardi of Mt. Healthy City Schools is the 2021 WeTHRIVE! Champion for Family Engagement.
As a social worker and homeless liaison with Mt. Healthy City Schools, Andrew is passionate about helping the district’s students and families.
During the 2020-2021 school year, Andrew brought the USDA Farmers to Families Food Box Program to Mt. Healthy. He coordinated everything necessary to receive, organize, and distribute produce boxes to more than 1000 families several times throughout the year.
During periods of remote learning, Andrew hand-delivered meals from the school food service department to students who were not able to pick them up, ensuring that they had healthy food while school was closed.
Andrew also helps with Mt. Healthy’s school food pantry and heads up Sharing Tree, a yearly fundraiser to help the district’s families in need around the holidays.
As Madison Kist says in nominating Andrew for this award: “He is extremely generous with his time, resources and energy. He is always willing to volunteer at events, even those he is not in charge of. If he is organizing an event, staff are quick to assist him, since he always does so much good for others.”
It’s a team effort!
Being nominated as a WeTHRIVE! Champion for Family Engagement was a humbling surprise. Winning the award is even more surprising considering the people in our community that do so much daily to engage parents and families. For the family engagement events that I helped to coordinate, mostly involving the distribution of food, I was consistently surrounded by a huge volunteer and staff group that made every single event possible and ultimately successful.
WeTHRIVE! Mt. Healthy City Schools is a hardworking, compassionate, fun, and helpful bunch committed to improving the lives of the community we serve. WE are the champions – and I love them dearly for everything they do in this community! Thank you for letting me be a part of such exceptional people and recognizing the work that WE do!
–Andrew Pardi
Andrew is described as selfless. His actions show that he is a true Champion for Mt. Healthy’s students and families.
Learn about WeTHRIVE! in Mt. Healthy City Schools here.