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Hoover Service Club honors Charon Rivers with community service award

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Photo by Jon Anderson

Photo by Jon Anderson

Photo by Jon Anderson

Photo by Jon Anderson

Photo by Jon Anderson

The Hoover Service Club today honored Charon Rivers with its Flora Mae Pike Community Service Award for Rivers’ work with the Support Our Soldiers Foundation.

Rivers founded the nonprofit in 2012 with her husband, Dr. Tom Rivers, and daughter, Rachel Rivers, after the Rivers’ son, Marine Lance Cpl. Thomas Rivers Jr., was killed in Afghanistan in 2010 when an improvised explosive device detonated while he was on patrol with a team he led. He was 22.

The Support Our Soldiers Foundation for many years sent care packages to U.S. troops, who often are deployed around the world for seven to 12 months at a time with little or no contact with family and friends.

The soldiers’ living conditions are often harsh, and the idea was to let the soldiers know they are remembered, loved and appreciated. The care packages sent by the foundation included living essentials, other needed products and a book that tells the story of the Rivers’ son and his Christian faith.

Charon Rivers today said she is no longer president of the Support Our Soldiers Foundation and has turned the task over to another group that sends care packages to U.S. soldiers and takes care of U.S. military veterans.

She thanked the Hoover Service Club for its support of the Support Our Soldiers Foundation over the years.

“I don’t deserve anything. I did this for the love of my son and to keep his memory alive,” she said.

The Flora Mae Pike Community Service Award is given in honor of one of the founders of the Hoover Service Club. The award was created in 1990 to recognize people for outstanding volunteer service in the Hoover community.

Past recipients include Sylvia Swaim, Becky Donnelly, Lois Taylor, Charlotte Poe Williams, Lynda Wasden, Judy Holcombe, Winnie Cooper, Martha Yeilding, Sara Perry, Roberta Atkinson, Paula Campbell, Betty Daigle, Greg and Donna Bishop, Ardith McMicken and Mark Davis.

Many of them were present at today’s Service Club meeting.

The Hoover Service Club also today installed new officers for the coming year:

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