Timbers select Jill Dayton as Community MVP

PORTLAND, Ore.— The Portland Timbers today announced Portland native Jill Dayton as the Portland winner of the MLS W.O.R.K.S./The Home Depot Community MVP contest. She will be recognized on the field during a halftime ceremony at Saturday’s Timbers match against Sporting Kansas City at JELD-WEN Field.

A Timbers season ticket holder, Dayton was selected through a league-wide essay contest after her husband, Troy, submitted her story.

Jill will represent Portland at the 2011 AT&T MLS All-Star Game on July 27 at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, N.J., where she will be in the running, along with nominees from each of the other 17 MLS teams, to win $10,000 for her charity of choice, Guide Dogs for the Blind.

For being selected as the Timbers’ Community MVP, she receives a Timbers team-signed ball, two tickets to a Timbers game and additional Timbers merchandise.

She will also receive two round-trip tickets to New York for the MLS All-Star Game, hotel accommodations and a $500 The Home Depot gift card and will be recognized on the field at halftime of the game.

A lifelong volunteer, Jill left her job with the Oregon Department of Human Services – Child Protective Services to be with her son, who had medical issues at the time. Jill and Troy then opened up their home as foster parents, providing a home for at least 35 children over the past few years, including a group of developmentally disabled teenage girls currently.

In addition to being a board member of the PTA at her children’s elementary school, where she was named Volunteer of the Year last year, Jill raises puppies for Guide Dogs for the Blind, an organization that prepares dogs to become service dogs for the visually impaired. The program pays to fly guide-dog recipients to its Portland campus, where they are housed for two weeks as they learn to work with their new guide dogs during training.

For more information on Guide Dogs for the Blind, please visit www.guidedogs.com.