Volunteer connect has announced the three winners of the organization’s annual impact awards. Jeremy Perlman, a resident of Lawrenceville, has been named the Liz Erickson Volunteer Impact Award honoree, and Celeste Avery of Pennington has been named the Rising Star Award honoree. The YWCA of Princeton’s NextGen Board has been selected as this year’s Impact Awards recipient.

VolunteerConnect is a Mercer County–based nonprofit committed to advancing volunteerism, promoting skills-based volunteering, and providing capacity-building support to other charitable organizations.

The Liz Erickson Volunteer Impact Award is named for the late Elizabeth Erickson, a champion for community service in the Princeton area. Perlman, a senior risk advisor at Borden Perlman, founded the NextGen Giving Circle of the Princeton Area Community Foundation, an incubator for developing young people as the next generation of philanthropic leaders in the Greater Mercer County region. The initiative has more than 20 active members and has distributed more than $40,000 in charitable gifts since its inception in 2017. Perlman also serves on the boards of directors of Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Greater Mercer County, the Princeton Mercer Regional Chamber of Commerce, and the Penn Hillel.

The Rising Star Award recognizes a graduate of VolunteerConnect’s board training program who has gone on to make a significant impact by sharing of their time. Avery has served on the Camp Fire New Jersey board since she completed the VolunteerConnect board training in 2014. Her passion for Camp Fire’s commitment to youth development has been evident to the organization’s leadership since her start. She became the board’s chair in 2016.

The YWCA of Princeton’s NextGen Board has been selected as this year’s Impact Awards recipien for the board’s commitment to community service and volunteerism. The NextGen Board works to emplower young women and build future board leadership. Participants are engaged in personal and professional development, and actively learn about board leadership by working with the YWCA of Princeton’s board of directors.

“As an organization committed to volunteerism, we are eager to recognize and honor individuals and organizations in our community that are engaging fellow community members and giving of themselves,” said Allison Howe, VolunteerConnect’s executive director. “We are particularly happy to see work being done to diversify nonprofit board service with outreach to young people, women, and people of color. We want to spotlight that there is room for everyone in service, and also to inspire many more people to serve.”

Honorees will be recognized at the nonprofit’s annual awards dinner on Thursday, Oct. 24, at the Mercer Oaks Country Club.

For more information about VolunteerConnect, visit VolunteerConnectNJ.org.