When Nicole McDaniel and Poppy and Dustin Danker came to the Helping Hands Community Foundation office last week, they had no idea why they were there.
They soon found out that they were there to be honored as award recipients. Nicole McDaniel received Helping Hands’ Volunteer of the Year Award, and Poppy and Dustin Danker are the co-owners of Danker Insurance, which received the Top Sponsor of the Year Award.
“Normally we would have done our awards at our annual festival that we put on, which there’s anywhere from 500 to 1000 people there, but with COVID we couldn’t do it last year,” director of Helping Hands Community Foundation Sabra Denson said. “So, we just decided to put a little luncheon together.”
The sponsor award recipient this year, Danker’s Insurance, signed up to sponsor Helping Hands on the first day the sponsorship program began.
“In addition to that, they also bought our turkeys for Thanksgiving,” Denson said. “So that kind of also put them over in the sponsorship category as far as giving more, but in addition to that they also volunteer at almost all of our activities so it’s kind of, both of the donation, and the work that they’ve put in to help us.”
Poppy and Dustin Danker have been volunteering with Helping Hands since before the sponsorship program began.
“I’ll always do everything I can, whether it be me just helping physically or if I’ve got the money to help financially, I’ll do that as well,” Dustin Danker said.
“I do really love helping other people, I mean this community helped us, they keep us in business, they keep my kids fed. So, I definitely want to help anybody else that I can.”
Both Poppy and Dustin Danker said that they think Helping Hands’ work is important in reaching those who might otherwise be overlooked.
Helping Hands Volunteer of the Year Award recipient Nicole McDaniel, clearly cares about those she helps.
“She is such a caring person that she would do anything for anybody that needed help,” Denson said.
However, McDaniel’s first involvement with Helping Hands was not as a volunteer.
“She was actually, she first came as a client,” Denson said. “She was struggling for a while, in the beginning, and then she just, that was kind of her way of giving back.”
The assistance McDaniel received, as one of the first clients at the new Helping Hands office, inspired her to help others.
“After the first time I went in there and they offered to do everything that they could to help me get on my feet, it really got me thinking, how it made me feel and how much more comforting it was to know that there were people out there willing to do that,” McDaniel said. “And the more people I saw walk in the door that day, the more I wanted to help them help other people.”
Currently, she travels to Chandler from Bristow —roughly 45-minutes to one hour away—about once a week to spend a full day volunteering at the Helping Hands Community Foundation office.
“Not only does she put all those hours and time in, she also does her job really well so she can get, you know, a whole upstairs of clothes put away faster than any of us,” Denson said.