Two Wisconsin Youth Honored for Volunteerism at National Award Ceremony in Washington, D.C.

Super Bowl MVP Peyton Manning Pays Tribute to Young Heroes as part of Four-Day Recognition Events

WASHINGTON -- Two Wisconsin students, Kelsey Swiatko, 17, of Kenosha and Stella Mayerhoff, 13, of Whitefish Bay were honored in the nation's capital last night for their outstanding volunteer work during the presentation of The 2007 Prudential Spirit of Community Awards. The two young people - along with 100 other top youth volunteers from across the country - received $1,000 awards as well as personal congratulations from Indianapolis Colts quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Peyton Manning at the 12th annual award ceremony and gala dinner reception, held at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

Kelsey and Stella were named the top high school and middle level youth volunteers in Wisconsin last February. In addition to their cash awards, they received engraved silver medallions and an all-expense-paid trip with their parents to Washington, D.C., for this week's recognition events.

Conducted in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards were created 12 years ago by Prudential Financial, Inc. to encourage youth volunteerism and to identify and reward young role models. Since then, the program has honored more than 75,000 young volunteers at the local, state and national level.

"Kelsey and Stella have demonstrated a level of compassion, dedication and achievement that is truly exceptional," said Arthur F. Ryan, Chairman and CEO of Prudential Financial, Inc. "We are proud to give them the recognition they so richly deserve, and hope that their example will inspire other young people to become actively involved in their own communities."

Kelsey, a senior at Bradford High School, has collected donations of more 5,000 pairs of new underwear and socks over the past two years for shelters in her community. Kelsey founded "Operation Underwear" after reading a news article about how donations for Hurricane Katrina victims were affecting local service agencies. "As a nation we are very generous in times of need," she said. "However, when the donations go to the disaster areas, the hometown donations do not get made, leaving hometown shelters in a deficit." Upon learning that socks and underwear were badly needed by shelters but rarely donated, Kelsey began planning an awareness and collection campaign to fill that need.

With help from her school guidance counselor, parents and teachers, Kelsey chose a day to host a "donation event" and publicized it through word-of-mouth, an e-mail campaign, and stories in the news media. She visited local businesses and service groups to solicit support, and recruited classmates to help. On the day of her event, Kelsey set up donation sites at a local department store decorated with banners and posters, and gave donors homemade cookies in the shape of 'undies' to thank them. Her first event in 2005 brought in more than 2,000 pairs of underwear and socks, and a second one last November added another 3,000. "To be able to obtain clean undergarments and socks may seem insignificant to some, but it is huge to someone without," said Kelsey. "Helping someone less fortunate than you is the best feeling you can have."

Stella, an eighth-grader at Whitefish Bay Middle School, raised more than $3,000 to fight cancer by creating and selling "Just Believe" wristbands, and by leading a team in a "Relay for Life" walkathon. She also donated her hair to make wigs for children undergoing chemotherapy treatments. "My friend Maggie, who has cancer now, and my friend Dina, who died of cancer, inspired me to learn more and get involved," Stella said.

With help from a friend, Stella designed and ordered 1,000 light-blue "Just Believe" wristbands and sold them at bake sales, band performances, and other events at her school to raise money for Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer. "It was quite a challenge, but we did it," Stella said. She then raised funds for the American Cancer Society by recruiting friends to form a "Relay for Life" team and secure pledges for their participation. When she donated her hair to "Locks of Love," a charitable organization that supplies real-hair wigs to children who have lost their own hair because of cancer treatments, Stella was able to see before and after pictures of the recipients. "You could see how happy it made them to have real hair," she said.

Applications for the 2007 awards program were submitted last fall through schools, Girl Scout councils, county 4-H organizations, American Red Cross chapters, YMCAs and Volunteer Centers affiliated with the Points of Light Foundation. The top middle level and high school applicants in each state and the District of Columbia were announced in February. These 102 State Honorees are in Washington this week with their parents for four days of special recognition events.

Ten of the 102 were named America's top ten youth volunteers for 2007 at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce headquarters today. These National Honorees received additional $5,000 awards, gold medallions, crystal trophies for the schools or organizations that nominated them, and $5,000 grants from The Prudential Foundation for charities of their choice.

The ten National Honorees are:

Taylor Bell, 18, of Little Rock, Ark., a junior at Pulaski Academy, who created Little Rock's first organized soccer league for special-needs children, engaging more than 100 kids who otherwise would have very limited opportunities to play team sports.

Kendall Ciesemier, 14, of Wheaton, Ill., an eighth-grader at Franklin Middle School, who formed a nonprofit organization that has raised $80,000 since 2004 through Web site donations and T-shirt sales to benefit AIDS orphans in Africa.

Kelly Davis, 18, of West Bath, Maine, a senior at Morse High School in Bath, who spearheaded the enactment of a state law allowing third-party nonprofit organizations to raise money for the police, and then raised more than $40,000 to purchase a bulletproof vest for every working police dog in Maine.

Anna DeSanctis, 13, of Houston, Texas, an eighth-grader at Holy Spirit Episcopal School, who raised more than $22,000 to create libraries at four orphanages in the region of China where she was born.

Bryce Pfeiffer, 14, of Raton, N.M., a member of the Colfax County 4-H and a home-schooled seventh-grader, who led a project to purchase and install a handicapped-accessible fishing dock on a lake at a local state park.

Robert Rasmussen, 14, of Hutchinson, Minn., a seventh-grader at Hutchinson Middle School, who made more than 600 cement markers to place at the graves of all U.S. veterans in a local cemetery, providing a permanent memorial to their sacrifice.

Mollie Singer, 18, of Las Vegas, Nev., a senior at Nevada State High School in Henderson, who has helped raise public support and more than $100,000 for diabetes research since she was diagnosed with the disease at age 4.

Jourdan Urbach, 15, of Roslyn Heights, N.Y., a home-schooled sophomore and a student at the Juilliard School's Pre-College Division in New York City, who has used his reputation and acclaimed abilities as a violinist to raise more than $1.3 million for national charities focused on neurological illnesses.

Kelydra Welcker, 18, of Parkersburg, W.Va., a senior at Parkersburg South High School, who invented a way to purify drinking water in her community by developing a test for the presence of a controversial industrial compound, and then creating a method for removing the chemical from water.

Heather Wilder, 13, of Las Vegas, Nev., a seventh-grader at Ernest Becker Middle School, who has written a series of 10 booklets to help foster children understand and cope with their situations, based on her own experiences as a foster child.

The National Honorees were chosen by a national selection committee that was co-chaired by U.S. Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Arthur Ryan of Prudential. Also serving on the committee were actor Richard Dreyfuss; Alma Powell, Chair of America's Promise - The Alliance for Youth; Robert Goodwin, former President and CEO of the Points of Light Foundation; Amy B. Cohen, Director of Learn and Serve America at the Corporation for National and Community Service; Kathy Cloninger, CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA; Donald T. Floyd Jr., President and CEO of National 4-H Council; Michael Cohen, President and CEO of Achieve, Inc.; Kathryn Forbes, National Chair of Volunteers, American Red Cross; Joe Militello, President of NASSP; and two 2006 Prudential Spirit of Community National Honorees: Geneva Johnson of the Bronx, N.Y., a student at Binghamton University, and Ajay Mangal of Pascagoula, Miss., a student at Columbia University.

NASSP President Joe Militello said: "Every year, the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program brings out some of the best and brightest youth in the country. This year is no exception as we take another welcomed opportunity to honor these young people for displaying great character and leadership as they try to effect positive changes in their communities, this nation and the world."

In addition to the organizations above, The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards are supported by the American Association of School Administrators, the National Middle School Association, the National School Boards Association, the Council of the Great City Schools, the National School Public Relations Association and many other national youth and service organizations.

More information about The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards and this year's honorees can be found at www.prudential.com/spirit or www.principals.org/prudential.

The National Association of Secondary School Principals - the preeminent organization and the national voice for middle level and high school principals, assistant principals and aspiring school leaders - provides its members with the professional resources to serve as visionary leaders. NASSP promotes the intellectual growth, academic achievement, character development, leadership development, and physical well-being of youth through its programs and student leadership services. NASSP sponsors the National Honor Society[TM], the National Junior Honor Society[TM] and the National Association of Student Councils[TM]. For more information on NASSP, NHS, NJHS or NASC, visit www.principals.org.

Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE: PRU), a financial services leader with approximately $616 billion of assets under management as of December 31, 2006, has operations in the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Leveraging its heritage of life insurance and asset management expertise, Prudential is focused on helping individual and institutional customers grow and protect their wealth. The company's well-known Rock symbol is an icon of strength, stability, expertise and innovation that has stood the test of time. Prudential's businesses offer a variety of products and services, including life insurance, annuities, retirement-related services, mutual funds, asset management, and real estate services. For more information, please visit www.prudential.com.

(Editors: full-color pictures of the Spirit of Community Awards program logo and medallions are available at www.prudential.com/spirit.)