Volunteer of the Year 2023 Award went to Athena Lemon and Nick Negetti
Scientists Athena Lemon and Nick Negetti had volunteered their time again and again on WSAD Zoom Deaf Chats since the start of COVID-19 about the virus and many others. Athena is a CODA [Child of Deaf Adults] and her mother is Christine Kostrubala. WSAD truly appreciate both for their time and information. Both are working and living in Tennessee.
Volunteer of the Year 2019 Award went to Jentzen Mooney
WSAD first met him at our first meeting in Vancouver 2 years ago and he had asked if he could make popcorn. I told him he can if he cleans up after the meeting. On a serious note, he had been and continues to volunteer, to help, to participate, to meet, and he is helping to work on our WSAD website with a professional web designer, Keith Turley. He attended every meeting that we have and of course, he brings his popcorn and stayed around to help. He puts his heart in all that he does for WSAD! Thank you, Jentzen Mooney!
Jentzen couldn’t stay for the Deafies in Drag performance at our state conference for us to surprisedly present him an award due to his family member who fell ill so WSAD presented it to him in the hallway where our WSAD booth was. He was surprisingly stunned!
Jentzen Mooney’s Profile:
Jentzen Mooney is a WSAD volunteer and associated hearing member since 2018. Jentzen started learning ASL at South Puget Sound Community College(SPSCC) in 2017 with Claudia Foy and continued on 2019 with Ray Bateh. Jentzen recently completed his AA Degree at SPSCC and was accepted to the University of Washington and will study Linguistics, Anthropology.
Jentzen is a Para-Educator in the North Thurston School District and works in Life skills and Medically fragile classrooms.
Previously Jentzen has worked as Web application programmer and tester. Jentzen worked in Los Angeles in Film VFX, Video Games, and Animation. Some films and Projects are listed here https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3406663/ and https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,334028/. Before that worked for King County Access Bus program as Transportation Supervisor for 4years.
In Jentzen’s free time he likes learning languages, sewing and volunteering for Native Plants Salvage Project, NW trails and National Parks Marmot Monitoring Project with his wife. He also claims to be an avid popcorn maker!