SPRINGFIELD TWP., Ohio (WKBN) - The Tom Holden Memorial Scholarship Contest carries on our former news anchor's mission of helping students. Holden was an educator, too.
The yearly contest asks students to write a public service announcement about their favorite charity. This year's winner came from a LaBrae student who wrote about a subject close to her heart.
Peyton Smith loves writing. She chose to write about Lifebanc. The words in her script, she had lived.
"I knew what the gift meant. So, I was able to portray that through my commercial," Smith said.
She latched onto the fact that one person could save eight lives. She knows two of those eight. Her aunt and best friend have been organ recipients, and they might have been missing from her life if there hadn't been a donor.
"I hope I'm inspiring people to become organ donors or look into it at least or find a way to help," Smith said.
Her public service announcement portrayed organ donation as a gift, rather than a scary medical procedure. The Lifebanc CEO Gordon Bowen feels the impact down the road could be phenomenal.
"The younger generation is the way to go, right? We need more and more people to say yes to donation, and so proud of what Peyton and all these students are doing for taking on the charity and making it their own because that's the future," Bowen said.
The contest had 222 entries this year. Five runners-up will each win $100. They are Jennifer Johnson, also of Labrae High School; Lauren Aiello, of Sharpsville Area High School; Nora Kurth, from Boardman High School; Talan Ramsay, from the Trumbull Career Technical Center; and Michael Daley, from Poland High School.
Peyton entered the contest as part of an optional assignment from her speech teacher Regina Helmick.
"So she took the fear out of organ donation, and she made it a gift," Helmick said. "She obviously got an "A", maybe an A-plus."
Lifebanc matched the $1,500 scholarship that WKBN gave Peyton. She's going to Cleveland State University and studying medical laboratory science.
Each winner will be featured in a commercial on WKBN later in April.