Handpicked by Gov. Jim Pillen, local 16-year-old Cyndralynn Meredith was awarded the 2024 ServNebraska Step Forward Disaster Volunteer Award.
Although still in high school, she is making a life-changing difference and has no plans to stop any time soon.
Cyndralynn volunteers 30-40 hours every month with the Red Cross and the Southeast Nebraska Medical Reserve Corps. She has completed medical and emergency management training and helps with medical response at events such as the Cornhusker State Games and Pinnacle Bank Arena events.
Volunteering runs in the Meredith family. Her father, Cody, has grandparents who were both volunteer firefighters, his father was a volunteer firefighter and his mother ran the local Red Cross when he was a child.
Cody is a unit coordinator with the Southeast Nebraska Medical Reserve Corps. He said he took Cyndralynn with him to volunteer whenever he had the chance, which helped her break out of her shell.
“I think it's a great way to give back to the community,” he said. “It’s not only seeing somebody go from sick or hurt and then to them getting better but seeing the mom's face when you're helping her kid, you know, that relief in their face.”
Cyndralynn began volunteering alongside her father as soon as she was old enough at age 14. She started by working with ice packs and bandaids and worked her way to more difficult aspects of first aid.
“The first event I ever did was a Big Red Challenge in Lincoln to honor soldiers,” she said. “It's a marathon, and I ended up saving a few people from heatstroke. We sent like six or seven to the hospital, and if we didn’t step in they would have passed away.”
Cody said it has been amazing to watch his daughter volunteer.
“She kind of shocks me sometimes because she is one of those people who absorbs everything,” he said. “It’s like she like puts it in a little card catalog in her head, and then you go to treat somebody, and she's like, ‘Well, Dad, I think it's this,’ and it’s like, ‘You're right.’”
There are a variety of ServNebraska Step Forward Award categories, and the governor chooses one winner for each category. Cyndralynn was nominated for the award by the medical portion of the team at SENMRC, and the ceremony was on Oct. 4 at Tiburon Golf Club in Omaha.
“I was extremely surprised,” she said. “I didn’t think that my hard work had paid off that quickly.”
Cyndralynn lives in Crete with her mom for one week and in Seward with her dad the next. She attends Crete High School and will start at Seward High School next semester. She has been looking at colleges recently and said she plans to study paramedics.
“I like the aspect of, ‘Hey, this needs to be quick, but you could save somebody’s life in a very few minutes,’” she said.
Cyndralynn said the best part of volunteering is knowing that just one small thing she does can change someone else’s life.
“Even the small things can mean the entire world to somebody else,” she said.
