Emerging Leaders: Isabel & Elijah Cockey
47 ABC – Meet Isabel and Elijah Cockey, our new Emerging leaders a brother and sister duo, both earning their Congressional Award Gold Medals, which
recognizes initiative, service, and achievement in America’s youth – the highest honor for youth civilians.
We’re told it’s a 24-month process where students log over 400 hours of volunteerism, 200 hours of physical fitness, and 200 hours of personal development. They also are required to plan and execute a 5-day 4-night expedition; which Isabel and Elijah Cockey did just that.
Both are members of 4-H and 4-H group Shore Good, members of the sibling’s bluegrass band, The Folk Villains, Salisbury fencing, Nanticoke Watershed Alliance, to name a few.
Isabel tells us, they grew up in a volunteer-oriented family and her upbringing formed her passion for finding ways to support the community, and in turn, better herself. “I feel like once it’s ingrained in you as a child, it becomes a part of you that you don’t want to leave. That satisfaction of helping people, but also seeing how helping them helps you grow.” She adds, “If you’re volunteering at a place where you can’t see the fruit of your labors, you can’t see what you are putting out there and how it is changing people, I think you need to go and find a place that you love doing the work there.”
Isabel and Elijah both say, that as much as it’s an honor to receive the award, it’s not about the award itself, but the tangible evidence to track the work they’re doing, and to see how much they’ve grown.
Elijah tells us, it was the journey to get his award that makes him the most proud. Whether volunteering at the Salisbury art space, or Historic London Town & Gardens in Edgewater, each opportunity gave him new ways to grow and helped to prepare him for his future. “Just helping out as many people as you can is kind of my goal with volunteerism and it has been for a long time, obviously all the credit goes to my parents for instilling those values in me and getting me involved in volunteerism from a young age,” says Elijah. “Every single thing you can do to help the global community and to just make the world a better place, well that’s important, that’s more than what a lot of people can do, anything helps.”
Elijah and Isabel have also inspired two younger teens, their sister Guinevere, and Shore Good 4-H member Jane Johnson, to pursue their awards as well.
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