(10/22/20) BATON ROUGE, La. — The National 4-H Council has named Tammy Mong, of Sabine Parish, as the Southeast Volunteer of the Year and National Volunteer of the Year for 2020.
“The Selection Committee was extremely impressed by Tammy’s accomplishments,” said Betsy McKay, senior director of the National 4-H Council, adding that the selection committee spent the past two months reviewing more than 25 nominations from throughout the United States.
A plaque will be created in Mong’s honor, and a $200 donation will be given in her name to the Louisiana 4-H Foundation.
“Tammy’s outstanding service to 4-H and its youth is nothing short of an embodiment of 4-H dating back to organization’s founding in 1902,” McKay said.
The nomination form called Mong an “agent of change” and servant leader within Louisiana 4-H and Sabine Parish 4-H for the past seven years. She has served in a leadership role in mentoring and coaching Junior Leaders, Cloverbuds and the Sabine Parish Fishing Club.
An avid competitive fisher with her husband, Derek, Mong developed and currently leads the Sabine Parish Fishing Club, which has provided fishing and life skills to more than 400 youth. Using her knowledge of the Toledo Bend Reservoir and its resources, she developed partnerships with the Sabine Parish Tourism Commission, Cypress Bend Resort, Toledo Bend Lake Association and Curt Carver Enterprises to support the program through supplies and in-kind donations as well as resources for club meetings.
Mong also was instrumental in helping Sabine Parish receive a $1,000 Louisiana 4-H Foundation Innovation and Volunteer Development Grant.
Mong led in the creation of a partnership with the Toledo Bend Lake Association that funded the Sabine Parish Fifth Grade Fishing Day. In conjunction with the Sabine Parish School Board, this program gives every fifth grade student the opportunity to learn how to fish and visit Toledo Bend.
She has skillfully designed meetings with opportunities for youth to become more engaged in community life by involving local leaders in club meetings and experiential learning opportunities, one nominator wrote.
Tammy Mong
The LSU AgCenter and the LSU College of Agriculture