Carolyn Kearns Young

Carolyn Kearns Young, 1946

B.A., Denison University
M.S., University of Dayton

Community Volunteer

Dayton, Ohio


Citation awarded June, 1996

Carolyn Kearns Young has spent a lifetime committed to community service. In her hometown of Dayton, Ohio, she is widely recognized for her volunteer work on behalf of philanthropies and institutions.

For example, Carolyn has served for 25 years as Director of Volunteers for the Dayton Holiday Festival Bazaar, which has benefitted over 300 nonprofit groups. She has volunteered at Kettering Hospital for more than 30 years, and has worked with the Montgomery County Correctional Facility for non-violent women. She also served as a board member of the Humane Society of Greater Dayton for 23 years, where she wrote proposals for grants. After several terms as a board member of the Dayton YWCA, she is now a fundraiser and volunteer at the Battered Woman Shelter there.

Carolyn earned the M.S. Ed. in Social Agency Counseling in 1984 from the University of Dayton, was graduated magna cum laude, and also studied at Oxford, England. In 1989, she was honored as one of the “Top Ten Women in Dayton for Community Service.” She has received the Outstanding Service Award from the Humane Society and the VIVA (Very Important Volunteer Award) of the Dayton YWCA.

In the Denison volunteer community, Carolyn is a member of the 1946 Golden Anniversary Reunion Committee; she has also worked as a Capital Campaign volunteer. She is a house board member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma house at Denison and past president of the Dayton Kappa alumnae.

Carolyn and her late husband, Charles Young ’43, have three grown children.