Makyla Whattler Awarded Bent County Communities that Care Youth Recognition Award

Description: Bent County Communities that Care Youth Recognition Award: Unsung Hero Recipient Makyla Whattler and Bent County Commissioner Chuck Netherton.


Published: 05/21/2021
Byline: Hart

Makyla Whattler Awarded Bent County Communities that Care Youth Recognition Award
 
Unsung Hero Award: A young person who has been an outstanding asset to the world around them. This person demonstrates generosity, helpfulness, responsibility, respect, and kindness in what they do and who they interact with. This person's existence is making our world a better place and they haven't been acknowledged nearly as much as they deserve to be.
 
Recipient: Makyla Whattler. 
Nomination Narrative: It's hard to put into words who I've come to know and see grow these last four years. Makyla comes from a humble home and some folks would not know her family or her name. Her anonymity is not due to her lack of presence in this community, but her innate drive to help and care for others without the need to be seen.

Makyla is a giver and is quick to help when there is a need. Whenever a church or school function is in need of a volunteer, you will find Makyla there. She is a non traditional FFA member who is fond of plants and the environment. She helps with county fairgrounds and community garden cleanup days and is an active helper in collecting recyclables here in town.  Through the church youth group, she would volunteer throughout the summer and fall to help elderly church members maintain their yards. Whenever we had fellowship meals most kids tittered off to play or chat with friends after a meal was done.  Makyla found her way into the kitchen to help clean and do dishes. Every single time.

She has been on numerous mission trips and was always an asset to our group. Her hard work ethic helped us complete intense landscaping jobs for Habitat for Humanity in Alamosa and Nederland. She also served on a trip where we went to Wind River in Wyoming (a reservation with one of the highest crime rates in the US) and was a part of the group that helped make a playground safe and usable for the native people. On those trips not only was she a blessing to those we served, but as a youth group leader she was almost like our second in command. She was not authoritative, but was the compass that would help point our youth group to other tasks and ways to serve.  

Makyla maintains a positive spirit and pushes herself and others to do well by others. She is a positive force that encourages other peers to help clean after dinner or maybe not make fun of a kid that's not there to defend themselves. Before covid disbanded the youth group, Makyla's last project was to bake cookies and deliver them to our community helpers (fire department, sheriff's office, ambulance, etc). She had the group quote positive thank you notes and helped deliver cookies around town, and this was of her own volition.

To know Makyla is to know a soul that is filled with kindness, love, and a desire to help others. To know Makyla is to also know that her homelife is humble and not a stranger to tragedy. Makyla's innate ability to care and help others came from years of her helping her ailing mother, and taking on the role of "mom" from a young age. In 2019 Makyla's mother passed away and though her grief was intense, Makyla's loving light did not dim when faced with such adversity.

Makyla Whattler is an outstanding young lady. She devotes her life to helping others and does it to share her loving light.  
 
(The intention of the Communities That Care Youth Recognition Award is to acknowledge youth for their contributions to community outside of just athletics and academics and instead focus on some of the ways they make the world better.)
 
 
 


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