The honor was conferred by the One Man Dallas campaign, which is an effort to attract more men to doing volunteer work in the community.
Omar is a councilmember in Richardson, Texas, in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. He also volunteers regularly at the Methodist Richardson Cancer Center.
Omar was one of 21 nominees for the 2012 One Man Dallas Award. He was selected as the one man who best represents the Dallas-Fort Worth area from the perspective of community involvement, personality, intelligence and fitness.
With women volunteering nearly five times more than men, the One Man Project was initiated to encourage more men to volunteer in their communities on the principle that one man can make a difference. One Man Dallas was launched last year adopting an idea started in 2009 with One Man Minneapolis.
Omar’s Iranian mother passed away from cancer the summer before his senior year in high school, which prompted his volunteer work with the Methodist Richardson Cancer Center. His father is Palestinian.
Omar describes himself as “living proof that the American dream is alive and well.”
He grew up in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas and attended Texas A&M University where he majored in industrial distribution.
First elected to the City Council in 2009 and easily re-elected last year, Omar is the only American of Iranian descent currently holding elected office in Texas.
