By: Jake Miller

HARTSVILLE, S.C.- Recent Coker graduate and former member of the women's lacrosse team and spirit squad member Jesse Sternberg received the Intercollegiate Women's Lacrosse Coaches Association (IWLCA) Student-Athlete Community Awareness Award for all of Division II.

The purpose of the community awareness award is to recognize those student-athletes who have contributed significantly to their community in a given year. These students have given their time and energy to support and develop athlete-community relations and have distinguished themselves from their peers. One student-athlete is honored throughout each division of college athletics (I, II, III and NAIA).

Over the course of her senior year, Sternberg completed a total of 416.5 community service hours on various projects in the Hartsville community. She has taken on a few of these projects as a member of the Coker Enactus team. 212 of those hours were spent working on a project Sternberg herself began while working with Carolina's Kids. Sternberg re-worked the budget to make the food healthier for the kids that were being helped. She also worked another 108 hours at Carolina's Kids just bagging lunches for underprivileged kids. Sternberg also worked 42 hours as a lunch buddy for local elementary schools, going in during lunch period and interacting with elementary school children. She spent another 36 hours building blocks out of recycled material to help prevent waste and taking up space in landfills. The blocks will be pressed and used to build houses for the homeless. Sternberg worked another 15 hours with the Coker College Homecoming Court, and was able to raise $700 toward research for Cystic Fibrosis. She also spent 2.5 hours working at a Hartsville elementary school working an in-school trick-or-treat for the kids. One of her other projects took place with members of the Coker women's lacrosse team on the annual MLK Day of Service, where they helped elementary schools re-decorate their classrooms.

"I am extremely proud of Jesse for being selected from all of Division II as the Community Awareness Award winner," said Coker head coach Kate Keagins.  "She is always willing to help around the community and this award is acknowledgment for all the hard work and long hours she puts in," said Keagins.

The award will be presented on Sat. June 3 at the All American Banquet at the Hunt Valley Inn in Hunt Valley, MD.