Long time Cutler Bay resident Miriam Bigenho was named “Volunteer of the Year” by Molina Health Care and awarded $1,000.
Rather than keep it, Bigenho gave the money to the food pantry charity at which she volunteers so that it could help others.
The award, with a Lucite plaque, was presented to Bigenho during a special ceremony and luncheon on Thursday, Dec. 6, which took place at Jungle Island. She again was honored on Sunday, Dec. 9, during a church volunteer luncheon at Cornerstone Church in Cutler Bay.
“It’s called the Champion Volunteer Award,” Bigenho said in an interview days later. “I was told I needed to give a speech, and
I’m not one who likes to talk in front of people. I was surprised. I feel honored. I don’t volunteer to look for awards; I volunteer because I enjoy doing it.”
Bigenho’s three grown children are all in their 50s and out of the house, and she had time available.
“I wanted to keep myself busy so I started volunteering,” she said, but added that she really started volunteering 46 years ago.
“My youngest son had started at Caribbean Elementary School and I wanted to be involved in the PTA and the students there knew me as the snow cone lady and the cotton candy lady, because that’s what I sold there after school. Then my two oldest children started at Mays Middle School and I got involved with the PTA down there.”
With double shifts she was, for a time, traveling between schools for the PTA and carrying a suitcase filled with pencils, paper and candies.
“The kids called me the traveling sales lady.”
She later was involved with the PTSA at Centennial School and held every office from secretary to second vice president to first vice president to eventually president.
Bigenho has been working with the food pantry for 10 years at what was originally the Cutler Ridge Methodist Church and is now Cornerstone.
Marilyn Horne, a member of the woman’s club to which Bigenho belongs, has high praise for the volunteer.
“Miriam Bigenho is a most remarkable woman,” Horne said. “She gives of herself with a loving and generous heart. She is always the champion for the underdog. She is a loyal and cherished friend, mom, grandmother and great grandmother.”
