The Jenco Foundation Fund

The Jenco Foundation Fund recognizes and celebrates unsung heroes who, outside of their paid positions, give their time, talent and passion in ways that contribute to quality of life in Appalachian Ohio. The Jenco Awards, which began in 2002, uphold the legacy of Father Lawrence Martin Jenco, who dedicated his life to the service of others.

The Jenco Foundation Fund celebrates people of all ages who, like Father Lawrence Martin Jenco, have made a difference in their communities through service and visionary leadership – people who exemplify the difference we can all make when we give time, talent and passion to helping our neighbors and building community. Established to continue the work of the Jenco Foundation, the fund offers individual achievement awards to recognize visionary leaders and volunteers who by direct, person-to-person action have improved the quality of life in Appalachian Ohio.

The award is open to people of all ages serving their communities.

2027 Jenco Award nominations

Nominations for the 2027 Jenco Awards will open in the spring.

2026 Jenco Award recipients

• Sarah Adkins of Athens County was the founder and driving force behind a nonprofit pharmacy that became a lifeline for hundreds of Southeast Ohio households. A Southeast Ohio native and pharmacist, Adkins opened Rising Suns Non-Profit Pharmacy in 2021 to provide free, life-sustaining medications to uninsured and underinsured residents across Athens, Hocking, Meigs, Morgan, Perry, Vinton and Washington counties. Rising Suns served more than 1,000 patients over its five years of operation, helping prevent illness and death by removing cost as a barrier to essential care. Operating almost entirely on grants, donations and volunteers, the pharmacy provided more than $8 million in medication savings and helped ensure that people could get the medications they needed when they needed them.
• Lisa Carroll of Gallia County has dedicated 10-plus years to serving children, families and communities across four Appalachian Ohio counties. In 2014, after the community answered her call to help support three families devastated by house fires, Carroll turned that outpouring of compassion into action, founding God’s Hands At Work, a faith-based nonprofit serving Gallia, Jackson, Meigs and Vinton counties. Carroll has grown the all-volunteer organization into a network of ministries and programs, offering everything from food and financial assistance to life-skills programming, educational opportunities and more. In providing both practical assistance and hope to those facing poverty and hardship, Carroll has also inspired many of those she has served to embark on their own journeys of service to others.
• Judge Luann Cooperrider has presided over Perry’s County probate-juvenile court for over 35 years, but her commitment to community reaches far beyond the courtroom, championing programs that make critical resources more accessible to people who need them most. Since 2008, the free monthly legal clinic she helped launch has provided nearly 2,000 income-eligible residents with civil legal advice. Cooperrider also helped establish the ALPHA Program, an educational and intervention program for at-risk youth, as well as a juvenile corrections facility that allowed young offenders to remain closer to home. Through the Perry Housing Coalition, she tackles homelessness and affordable housing, and through the Community Foundation for Perry County, she is growing charitable giving to benefit the county’s residents and communities. Most recently, Cooperrider started the Wills for Vets program, providing essential legal documents to local veterans and their spouses.
• Stephanie Laube of Guernsey County has spent two decades helping individuals and families move from homelessness and uncertainty toward safe, stable housing and a more secure future. In her previous professional work serving Guernsey County children and families, Laube saw that housing was a common challenge many of them faced. She co-founded the Samaritan Center of Guernsey County, a nonprofit that operates multiple transitional homes that provide residents not only a safe place to live but individualized case management to help them identify and overcome barriers to permanent housing. Laube leads the organization’s case management work and its fundraising efforts, securing resources needed to sustain the transitional homes and to provide emergency assistance to families at risk of becoming homeless.
• Sandra Landis, Skip Ricketts and John Winnenberg are the visionaries behind a 50-year effort to rescue and revive the historic Tecumseh Theater, preserving a piece of community, pride and heritage in southern Perry County and the greater Hocking Valley region. In 1976, Ricketts stepped forward to purchase the building for $500 after learning it was slated for demolition. He and Winnenberg began leading community efforts to improve the building and secure funding to rehabilitate it. In 1990, Winnenberg and Landis, who passed away in 2021, formed the nonprofit Sunday Creek Associates to preserve and share the area’s unique history – and to oversee the theater. Under their leadership and through decades of persistence, they secured grants and other resources to fully restore the theater, culminating in its grand reopening in June 2026 – and just months later, serving as the setting for the Jenco Awards ceremony honoring their legacies of service.