The Henrico County and Chesterfield-Colonial Heights Court Appointed Special Advocates programs (CASA) have named three recipients, one posthumously, of the first Unsung Hero awards, recognizing their dedicated volunteer work benefiting local young people.
 
The Unsung Hero Award honors individuals who have voluntarily committed their time and skills to support youth in the metropolitan area. Recipients have made substantive but unrecognized contributions to improve the quality of life of local children and young people.    
 
“These are ordinary people who have done extraordinary things to help children and young people in our community,” said Barbara Herzog, executive director of Henrico CASA. “They have given freely of their time and sought no recognition for their unselfish efforts.”
 
The 2011 Unsung Hero Award recipients are: Lt. Col. James Bourque, retired, Chesterfield County Police Department, a founding member of Chesterfield CASA’s board of directors with more than 14 years of service to the agency; Susan Hill, retired, Henrico CASA, a volunteer with Virginia CASA working to develop a comprehensive reporting system for CASA programs statewide; and the late Lawrence Murtaugh, a certified public accountant and business broker who served as a scoutmaster with the Boy Scouts of America and was actively involved in a mentoring program for kindergarten students at Swansboro Elementary School in Richmond.
 
Henrico and Chesterfield CASA are private, nonprofit organizations working closely with their counties’ Juvenile and Domestic Relations courts. The programs train community volunteers to serve as advocates for abused and neglected children in the court system. Last year, CASA volunteers served 434 children in Henrico and Chesterfield, donating 15,800 hours to their cases.

For details about the winners, visit http://www.henricocasa.org/News/tabid/67/Default.aspx.