Photo:  USA Freedom Corps photo by M. T. Harmon

Desiree T. Sayle, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of USA Freedom Corps, presented the President’s Volunteer Service Award to Angelina (age 11), Gabriel (age 9) and Sophie Winbush (age 6) at the 2006 White House Easter Egg Roll on April 17, 2006. The sisters have been volunteering to help a Somali family through the Pittsburgh Refugee Center for almost a year now. The family, which fled Somalia in the early 1990's, lived in a refugee camp in Kenya for over a decade until finally arriving in the United States about one and a half years ago. The sisters have visited the family almost weekly, helping take the family shopping - which not only includes the usual grocery store shopping, but visiting Halal butchers where they, an Islamic family, can purchase meat, and scouring the markets for green bananas, a staple of their diet. We have also taken them to museums, the zoo, playgrounds, doctor and hospital visits, and the oldest daughter attends all an day musical theater with Angelina at a nearby church weekly.

For photo distribution information, please click here.