FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
April 2, 2024
Media Contact: Aaron Pelo, apelo@miaflcio.org | 734.355.2741
Michigan AFL-CIO Celebrates Utility Worker Abigail Baum, Walt Campbell Community Service Award Winner
LANSING, Mich. – During National Volunteer Month, the Michigan AFL-CIO celebrates UWUA Local 223 member Abigail Baum, a recent recipient of the prestigious Walt Campbell Community Service Award. The award, created in 1977, honors former Michigan State AFL-CIO Secretary/Treasurer Walter Campbell, for his dedication and commitment to community service involvement at the local and state levels. The award was designed to honor his legacy and to inspire others to follow in his footsteps.
“Abigail’s commitment to giving back to her community and impassioned dedication to the labor movement is nothing short of awe-inspiring,” said Michigan AFL-CIO President Ron BIEBER. “The Walt Campbell award was created to recognize people like Abigail, who go above and beyond their peers to improve their communities through selfless service, and there is no one more deserving of this honor than Abigail.”
Baum has been active in community service work both within her local union and in her community. She has served on UWUA Local 223’s Community Service Committee for six years as well as Social Welfare and Solidarity Chair and as the Safety Representative for maintenance. In 2016, she started the Relay for Life of Romulus, which has since raised over $200,000 for the American Cancer Society. She has played an instrumental role in her local union’s community service work, holding quarterly food drives, helping to fix up homes of disadvantaged community members, and raising critical funding to support summer camp trades programming for teens.
“Union members like Abigail show us what labor members do and what we are – we are first and foremost a part of a larger union and Abigail takes care of the community that she lives, works, and worships in,” said Teresa McGINNIS, AFL-CIO State Director of Labor and Community Services at the Michigan Association of United Ways. “Abigail’s leadership through her union and in her daily life, giving back to her community and supporting the critical work of groups like the United Way, embodies what this award, and what Walt Campbell’s legacy of service is all about.”
“I’m overwhelmed with gratitude,” said BAUM. “It is truly an honor to be selected for this award from amongst the incredible nominees, and a privilege to represent my local. There is no set path to being successful in community service – you’ll try a hundred things and the first 99 won’t work out. But when you finally succeed and are able to see your work make a difference and improve lives in your community, that makes it all worth it.”
The Michigan AFL-CIO, Michigan’s largest labor organization, is a federation representing forty different labor organizations, eighteen different central labor councils, and eight constituency groups representing over 1 million union members and their families.
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