Teenager's life is filled with volunteering

Abi Thompson has probably done more volunteer work by the age of 17 than most people do in a lifetime.

She's cleaned out donkey pens, painted houses, helped the homeless, cleared paths, planted trees and collected canned goods instead of candy at Halloween — the last in costume as a hippie.

It all started in kindergarten when the Mount Pleasant resident helped plant seedlings at the Charles Pinckney National Historic site on Long Point Road.

"My big job was to get pine straw and put it around the trees that were planted," she remembered. "That was the only thing I could carry."

The Bishop England High School rising senior started volunteering in earnest about eight years ago. Since then, it's been a rewarding stream of day or week-long projects to help the needy, the young and the old.

Read more about this Jefferson Award nominee in Sunday's editions of The Post and Courier.