Every year, the National Liberty Museum recognizes students around the country who stand up for others with our Young Heroes Award, sponsored by TD Bank. Every year, we recognize one student who has demonstrated responsibility and excellent  character with our President’s Honor Award. Our winner for 2009 was Van Morn, an amazing Philadelphian whose good works appear to be unstoppable.

Van had just completed his final year at Olney High School in Philadelphia, and now attends Thaddeus Stevens University.  He was nominated by Mrs. Elaine Steinbacher, his advisor for the Pennsylvania Congressional Awards Program.

Olney is a neighborhood in North Philadelphia with a rich history.  Originally rolling hills of farmland settled by German-Americans, Olney has become home to people from all over the world.  Its story is Philadelphia’s story.  The neighborhood, like most of the city, was hit hard by the deindustrialization of the 1960s and 70s. Factories closed down.  Businesses, and the jobs they offered, disappeared.  Crime rates went up.  Many people moved out.  In their place, new populations moved in: Vietnamese, Columbians, Koreans, African-Americans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Laotians, Cambodians.  They saw the opportunity in this neighborhood.  They have worked hard and kept Olney alive, carrying on old traditions and starting new ones.

Van and his family are a part of this renewal.  He, his parents, and his two younger sisters moved from the country of Cambodia to the United States, in search of a promise.  His grandmother, who lost three children to the dictatorship of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, lives in California and took the family in.  She didn’t have enough room in her house.  It was not easy, but that was no deterrent.

Van grew up in a world of poverty, and his family worked hard every day to survive.  They only had enough to eat because his mother planted and cultivated crops when she wasn’t working.  “We are a surviving type of family,” Van says.

This time last year, he had a job, and was a full-time high school student, and faced the additional challenge of becoming a fluent English speaker.   Still, he volunteered your time to the less fortunate.  He gave his time to the Inglis House for Disabled Adults.  He initiated “clean-up-the-streets” programs in your neighborhood.  He even helped with the Pennsylvania Migrant Education Program, as their official photographer.

Van is the kind of person who sees the opportunities ahead of him, and reaches for them.  At the same time, he does his best to give other people an opportunity too.  He’s a hard worker, and an exceptional student, but the quality that best defines him is his gratitude.  He is happy to have been given a chance to succeed, and he can’t help but give back to everyone around him.

Van won the President’s Honor because he has proven himself to be a remarkable Young Hero.  We admire his can-do attitude, and for his refusal to give up.  We honored him for his giving nature and his commitment to others. He has already achieved so much, and now has a whole lifetime to build on those accomplishments and to inspire others.  Congratulations, Van!

Kitty Felix and her mother had been on the run for four years. The Nazis had taken over their home country of Poland in 1939. The Felixes were Jewish, and the Nazis were persecuting Jews. No place was safe. They had fake documents, thanks to a Catholic priest, but someone told the Nazis that they were Jews. That was the beginning of Kitty's imprisonment.

They were told they were being sent to Auschwitz, but Mrs. Felix was confused. Auschwitz was a beautiful city, filled with ponds and meadows. Why would they be sent there? Mrs. Felix and Kitty didn’t know about what was happening there, how the Nazis had filled the city with work camps and death camps. Kitty and her mother spent the next two years as prisoners in some of the worst places on Earth.

After the war was over, Kitty and her mother were released. Kitty found that hardly anybody knew about what happened during the Holocaust, and many didn’t want to know. “That sounds far-fetched,” people would say when she told her story.  Even her uncle said to her, “I don't want you to talk about anything that happened to you. I don't want to know.”

People needed to know! The Holocaust was able to happen only because too many people pretended it wasn’t happening. If people didn’t talk about it, it might happen again. 

So Kitty, now married and named Kitty Hart-Moxon, dedicated her life to telling her story.  She talks about how she’s alive because of teamwork, how the prisoners on a crowded train car would take turns getting breathable air through a crack in the floor. She tells people about the kindness of complete strangers, like the German woman who risked her own life every day to hide food for Kitty. Mostly, she talks about how everybody makes choices, and its up to us – will we choose to help others?

She has made it a point to talk to school groups.  Why?  In her words, “Because discrimi­nation and bullying starts in the playground. Some say you need to start teaching early – if you don't, you miss the train.”

Guillaume Morand is a Hero of Character in the news right now. He's breaking the law so that he can protect religious freedom in Switzerland.

Here in the United States, the Constitution protects our freedom of religion. Do you know which Amendment guarantees that? (You can find the answer at the end of this post)

At the end of 2009, the people of Switzerland voted to change their constitution. They added the following words: "The building of minarets is prohibited."

So then why did Guillaume Morand break the law?

Because a minaret is a building that Muslims use for prayer. Guillaume believes that everyone should be treated fairly, no matter what their religion is.

So what did he do?

He built a minaret in his hometown of Bussigny. He got some plastic, some wood, and gold paint, and turned the chimney of his sneaker warehouse into a minaret (almost as big as our 21-foot Flame of Liberty, the centerpiece of the National Liberty Museum). Just to make sure the authorities saw that he was breaking the law, he installed spotlights on the roof and pointed them directly at the minaret.

There are 150 Muslims who live in the town of Bussigny, but he's not one of them. He doesn’t even practice a religion.  What he wants is for his country to treat everyone fairly. When he saw this discriminatory law, he knew he had the power to stand up to it. 

"I don't have the power to do much,” he says, “but I wanted to give a message of peace."

(If you guessed that freedom of religion is protected by the 1st Amendment, you’re right! But that’s not the only one – check out the 14th Amendment, too.)