R. Renée Jones, MAS+ H. Ted Olson Humanitarian Award Making A Difference THE CALL TO MAKE a positive difference in the world came to Renée Jones, MAS+, at the tender age of 17. The seed was planted early by her grandmother, Mama Ruby, an active volunteer in the veterans community, who routinely prodded Jones to join the Disabled American Veterans Auxiliary. One day, when Jones was away at college, she had a change of heart. “The only way to describe it is that the good Lord spoke to me, and I made a New Year’s resolution to do whatever I could to make a difference in the lives of veterans who were willing to give their life for someone they didn’t know,” she says. In that moment, Jones promised Mama Ruby that she would do what she could, when she could, but that she wasn’t interested in becoming an officer. However, Jones’ natural leadership abilities turned heads, and soon she was elected as a unit officer, then a state officer and eventually as National Commander, the youngest to date in the history of the organization. From there, Jones became involved in the Department of Veterans Affairs, where her first volunteer assignment was conducting bingo parties at the Oteen VA Medical Center in Asheville, North Carolina. For more than 40 years, Jones, founder and CEO of A Creative Touch in Wilmington, North Carolina, has been a passionate volunteer for both organizations, leading dozens of projects, such as a military birthday project for her local VA health care system, recruiting sponsors for the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic, gathering Christmas ornaments for the USS North Carolina submarine and collecting “I would rather volunteer than work. In fact, I was only going to do promo for one year until my term as National Commander ended and then I was going to get a real job.” —R. RENÉE JONES, MAS+ 60 • JANUARY 2026 • PPAI Must Read | PPAI Icons
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