Reston's Lilienthal Earns Humanitarian Honor

Longtime Reston resident Phil Lilienthal has been awarded the National Peace Corps Association's Sargent Shriver 2013 Award for Distinguished Humanitarian Service.

The award, presented annually, goes to a "returned Peace Corps Volunteer who continues to make a sustained and distinguished contribution, whether that be to humanitarian causes at home, abroad, or through innovative social entrepreneurial efforts to bring about significant, long term-change," says the Peace Corps Association.

The National Peace Corps Association is the DC-based nonprofit connecting former Peace Corps volunteers.

Lilienthal and his wife, Lynn, served in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia in the 1960s. Lilienthal, who has lived in Reston since 1967, is an attorney who also owned Camp Winnebago, a boys sleepaway camp in Maine.

A decade ago ago, Lilienthal founded Global Camps Africa, a Reston-based nonprofit that runs a residential camp for South African children who have been affected by HIV. More than 5,000 children have attended Camp Sizanani in South Africa.

"Phil’s eight-day camps and the follow-up biweekly sessions provide a way for the children to see hope for their future," the Peace Corps said in a release. 

The Sargent Shriver Award for Distinguished Humanitarian Service will be presented to Lilienthal in Boston at the Peace Corps Connect  June 28-29.

To read more about Lilienthal and the Sargent Shriver Award, click here.

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