Winder teen wins national award for 'making a difference'

WINDER - A teenager from Barrow County who has raised more than $55,000 in recent years for the cancer society has been recognized as a national ambassador.

Jena Sims of Winder, who lost both her grandfathers to cancer, is the 2006 Huggable Heroes Ambassador. Jena is a former Miss Junior National Teenager and has created the Prince and Princess of Hope beauty pageant for children with cancer as a way of "sharing that winning feeling with kids who had faced the diagnosis of cancer."

The program, in its third year, is for "kids who make a difference" and is sponsored by the Build-A-Bear workshop.

Jena's prize is $1,500. She was chosen from hundreds of entries and more than 90,000 votes cast on the Build-A-Bear Workshop Web site.