Margaret Morrison's team at
Prudential Carolinas Realty wins
award for volunteer hours
donated to Friendship Trays

Margaret Morrison leads a volunteer team that has won recognition for hours and hours of service to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg community.

Her team at Prudential Carolinas Realty contributed 384 hours during 2007, mostly delivering meals to neighbors who are unable to prepare their own.

For their efforts, the Prudential Foundation and Prudential Financial awarded the team one of its 2008 Prudential CARES Volunteer Grant Awards.

Morrison's award carried with it a grant of $250 to Friendship Trays from the Prudential Foundation. Lucy Bush Carter, executive director of Friendship Trays, said the grant would be devoted to operating support for the meals-on-wheels program that Morrison and her volunteers participate in.

In the 2008 program, the Prudential organizations awarded  $466,250 to 608 nonprofits worldwide. Gifts ranged from $250 to $5,000. Since 1991 when it began, the program has awarded more than $9 million, according to Prudential.

"We are grateful every month for the work of Margaret and her team," said Carter. "They and more than a thousand other volunteers make this service possible, in good times and bad."

"Together we recently weathered a Charlotte-area gas crisis that followed Hurricane Ike," Carter said. "Today we're weathering a global financial storm. Margaret and her team model for all of us a good way to thrive even in tough times – by sticking to a task and focusing on our most important asset, the people of our community."

Carter said Friendship Trays depends on volunteer hours and donor dollars to deliver nutritious meals to about 750 people weekdays at their homes or at meal sites. Both hours and dollars may be in shorter supply in coming months, she acknowledged.