Cheryl Kubitz a longtime member of The Consortium for Public Education’s board, has won a Jefferson Award for community service. The award recognized Kubitz, manager of McKeesport Huntington Bank, for taking on projects ranging from a food drive that brought 750 pounds of donations to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank to an eight-day relief mission in Guatemala sponsored by the First Presbyterian Church of Murrysville. In Guatemala, Kubitz mesmerized Mayan children visiting a medical clinic by blowing bubbles.  On the home front, she’s comforted kids too, as a volunteer for seven years at the Highmark Caring Place, a center for grieving children, and for two years at Children’s Hospital.

Kubitz told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which reported on her award in its February 3rd edition, that her call to service dates back to her own time of need. As a single, working-mother 20 years ago, she turned to her local food pantry in Brookline for help when family finances didn’t always stretch far enough to feed her kids—then 4 and 10 years old.

William Long, program manager for the Pittsburgh office of Operation Hope, which teaches youth the basics of personal finance, from budgeting to wise shopping and saving—nominated her for the award. Kubitz finds time to volunteer for Project Hope too. “I would be remiss if I didn’t nominate this woman,” Long told the Post-Gazette. “I’ve trained over 400 volunteers and she is the best of them.”