Meet Daily Point of Light Award honoree Kier Devkota. Read her story, and nominate an outstanding volunteer or family as a Daily Point of Light.
When people reach their darkest hours, Kier Devkota answers the call, literally. As a certified crisis counselor, she volunteers roughly 30 hours a month with the nationwide Crisis Text Line and another 24 hours a month on the Crime Victims Assistance Center’s hotline in Binghamton, New York, where she’s a certified New York State Rape Crisis Counselor.
Staying calm through acute crises, she helps people build safety plans, work through overwhelming feelings, and find steady ground when they need it most. In one recent stretch, she completed 75 chats and heard back from people grateful she’d kept them from going “off the deep end” that evening.
But Kier’s care doesn’t stop at crisis work. She channels the same patience into lifting people up through education, guiding young children through the Read718 HUGS literacy program and helping adult immigrants learn English at the Washington English Center. What drives her is empathy, which, she believes, is exactly what the world is missing right now. For Kier, the most rewarding part is often a single “thank you.” As she puts it, inaction has no benefit, but action, even small, goes a long way.
Do you want to make a difference in your community like Kier? Find local volunteer opportunities.