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Press Releases

Monroe County Child Advocate Named 2017 CASA Volunteer of the Year

Posted by: Katharine Heriges on Jan 30, 2017

Award given to John Porter at Nashville ceremony

NASHVILLE, Jan. 30, 2017 — John Porter of Vonore has been named the 2017 CASA Volunteer of the Year by the Tennessee Bar Association Young Lawyers Division (YLD). The award recognizes Porter’s six years of service as a volunteer for CASA Monroe.
 
Nashville lawyer Cherrelle Hooper, chair of the YLD Children’s Issues Committee, presented the award to Porter at a recent dinner in Nashville. Alisa Hobbs, executive director of CASA Monroe, also was on hand.
 
Porter was recognized for his unrelenting advocacy on behalf of clients and his dedication to doing the “actual work” of volunteering. Porter is a retired software developer and business owner who experienced “incredible success” in his professional life, according to Hobbs. But Porter made a decision to commit himself to a retirement of service, and made it clear that rather than serving on boards of directors, he wanted to work directly with the people who need it most.
 
Porter was said to go “above and beyond” on many occasions, such as when he provided a client family with Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. He handled many juvenile justice cases and would travel great distances to visit those young people, even when they were in detention centers or therapeutic homes. He speaks fondly of one case, in which a juvenile delinquent with an uncertain future grew to become a decorated Marine. The two still keep in touch, Hobbs says.
 
When Porter is not advocating for his CASA clients, he is volunteering for Meals on Wheels, where he takes on all tasks, even washing dishes.