Thornton received a $1,000 scholarship. She was sponsored by the Exchange Club of Mount Olive.
Thornton has been involved in many fundraisers and service projects in her local and surrounding communities, said Lynne Smith, school counselor at North Duplin High.
Thornton has helped coordinate the Books for Buddies program at North Duplin Elementary, has helped with the John Roland Sullivan Scholarship Benefit for several years and actively volunteered at Sampson Regional Center in Clinton.
She also founded âThe Rose Project: Notes of Love,â in which she made paper roses from tissue paper and wrote notes to go along with them to nursing home residents during the pandemic. Within eight months, she had made and delivered more than 1,000 roses and notes to 14 different nursing homes, logging more than 600 miles across eastern North Carolina.