- December 17, 2025
After logging at least 50,000 volunteer hours, Mary Yochum was awarded with an all-expense-paid Caribbean cruise.
BY EMILY BLACKWOOD | STAFF WRITER
Usually the perk of volunteering is a feeling of accomplishment and of being a Good Samaritan. But for one Ormond Beach resident, those feelings also came with an all-expense-paid cruise to the Caribbean.
Mary Yochum, a long-time volunteer of Ormond Beach, recently received the Cabot Community Celebrity Award for her work with the Volusia County Fire Service and Lions Club. She is one of 50 Community Celebrity Award honorees who will be treated to an all-expense-paid Caribbean cruise courtesy of the farm families who own Cabot Creamery Cooperative.
But don’t think Yochum won this award for just some Saturdays at the soup kitchen. She estimates that she has logged at least 50,000 hours.
“In my area, I’m like the go-to person,” Yochum said. “I match problems with solutions. Once in a while, I will get a call for somebody that needs food, and I connect them with some of the food banks. “
Yochum leaves for her cruise on Jan. 11 from Puerto Rico. She said this is the first cruise she has been on since the early 1970s.
“This is the first big cruise I’ve been on,” Yochum said. “So it’s going to be a whole new experience for me.”
