Grove City teen moved to action by death of nephew

January 6, 2005
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Gretchen McKay
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05006/437720.stm 

It would have, according to this story, been so easy, and completely understandable, for Nancy Buck to slide into the dark depths of despair when her 2 1/2-year-old nephew Kevin Kowalcyk died from E. coli infection in August 2001. Instead, the Grove City 10th-grader funneled her grief into much-needed action.

The story says that after learning that Kevin's death might have been prevented if her family had been more aware of the risks of food-borne illnesses like E. coli, Buck asked her health teacher at Grove City High School if she could talk to classmates about food safety. She ended up giving about 30 presentations to Grove City freshmen during home economics class over the next three years.

And that was just the beginning.

Buck also helped circulate a petition in the spring of her sophomore year in support of the Meat and Poultry Pathogen Reduction and Enforcement Act of 2002, which would authorize the U.S. Department of Agriculture to set tough limits for food-borne hazards in meat and poultry. The more than 800 signatures she ended up gathering from teenagers were later presented by her mother, Pat Buck, to Congress, along with 6,000 adult signatures.

Buck also designed a Make a Difference Day project that generated 280 e-mails to various lawmakers about the proposed legislation, which is currently in committee in the U.S. House and Senate and has become known as Kevin's Law.

Buck, who spent 10 days by Kevin's bedside in a Wisconsin hospital, watching helplessly as his stomach inflated like a balloon and he cried in pain, was quoted as saying, "It was a horrible experience, and I couldn't imagine anyone else going through it. So I'm trying to make it so they don't have to."

In recognition of her efforts, Buck, a 19-year-old freshman at the University of Dayton, has been named one of seven local 2004 Jefferson Award honorees, which is considered the Nobel Prize of volunteering. Her service will be honored at a reception and ceremony in Carnegie Music Hall, Oakland, on Jan. 27.