We are thrilled to share that our co-founder, William Rosenthal, has been awarded the New Jersey State Governor's Volunteerism Medallion for Service Through STEM. He is one of 20 individuals who will be presented with a medal in recognition of their commitment to volunteering and their impressive impact.

About the Award

The annual Governor's Volunteerism Awards honor extraordinary individuals and groups who achieve measurable community impact and represent outstanding acts of public service. Recipients are chosen for their unique vision, dedication, and tenacity of heroic proportions, all without the expectation of compensation or public recognition.

While the NJ Governor’s Office of Volunteerism awards certificates to 100 honorees each year, it only confers the medallion on a select few. By bringing these medallion winners' stories to light, the State of New Jersey celebrates its top civic heroes and aims to inspire a continued culture of community engagement among its 1.9 million volunteers.

A Lifelong Volunteer

Will is a Cornell University student, currently on leave and working in cybersecurity for NATO. Community service has been part of his life for as long as he can remember.

He volunteered with children at Shining Stars Network, helping bring annual talent shows to life for kids with disabilities. He also supported nature conservation at Reeves-Reed Arboretum.

Closing the Volunteer "Discovery Gap"

While a high school student at Union County Vocational-Technical Schools, Will noticed a problem. Outdated volunteer directories and poor online visibility were keeping people from finding ways to serve in their own communities.

He recognized that the same automated web scraping and data processing techniques used in commercial applications could solve this civic challenge. So he co-founded Samaritan Scout and set out to close the "discovery gap."

Will architected and coded Samaritan Scout's AI-powered search engine. He built web crawlers that automatically gather volunteer opportunities from thousands of nonprofit websites in real time, with no manual submissions required.

That meant solving tough technical problems: inconsistent website structures, unstructured data, duplicate listings, and maintaining quality at scale. The result is a fast, intuitive, commerce-grade search experience, delivered free as a public good.

Lifting the Burden on Nonprofits

Small grassroots nonprofits often lack the time and budget for marketing and search engine optimization. The Samaritan Scout platform does that work for them, surfacing opportunities that were previously invisible online.

By automating what once required manual effort, Samaritan Scout lets nonprofits focus on their missions while volunteers find them more easily.

Building a Team and a Learning Lab

Starting in New Jersey, Will scaled the platform to New York, Wisconsin, Utah, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Washington, and the DC-Maryland-Virginia region. The technical foundation he built allowed dozens of volunteers and interns to contribute and expand coverage nationwide.

Those contributors include Wyatt Sell - who led all technical development when Will was unavailable - Kavita Mahabaleshwarkar - the chief UX designer - Pradhi Pakkerakari, Akash Dubey, Noah Siffert, Andrea Garcia, Oshmi Ghosh, Jack Greenwald, Rahul Rajkumar, Aniket Anvekar, M.S., and many others.

Will Rosenthal (standing) volunteers with student interns Akash Dubey (left) and Jack Greenwald (right)

Impact Today

Today, Samaritan Scout connects 20,000 unique users with local volunteer opportunities every week. The platform is officially featured on Utah's and Virginia's state volunteerism websites.

Several national nonprofits are also exploring Samaritan Scout as a free alternative to costly third-party vendors.

What began as an idea has become lasting civic infrastructure that helps people help others.

Thank You

Thank you to everyone who works so hard to support volunteering in New Jersey, including Dale G. Caldwell, MBA, Ed.D., Melinda S., Heather Tedesco Pasquale, and Mikie Sherrill.

And thank you to AmeriHealth and Grounds For Sculpture for supporting this Sunday's award ceremony.

Please tune in on Sunday, September 27 to celebrate Will and all of this year's honorees! The livestream begins at 1 p.m. ET and opens with a slideshow of photos showing honorees in action, serving their communities.