2021 Points of Light Inspiration Honor Roll

Hannah has struggled with mental health conditions since age 8. She had to leave school at 14-years-old due to her mental health worsening to the point she could no longer attend.

After years of struggling for support and exhausting her options, Hannah felt defeated, but the pandemic gave her new motivation to support the next generation. After the schools closed due to COVID-19, she was still out of work but wanted to do all she could to help so she began to volunteer. In 2020, she volunteered 250 hours over six months.

Hannah then launched a youth-led access initiative, One/Third Project, and has since brought on several volunteers to help provide academic, employability and emotional services to young people with disrupted educational histories.

Hannah has since been nominated for a few awards, been featured in media outlets and been invited to a number of events as a guest speaker on behalf of young people across the UK. She is grateful to have a small platform to give a voice to those who may have been left behind by the systems in place currently. If her experiences can help just one young person, she has done a good job in her eyes.

Since 2008, Steph has been volunteering in various ways with foodbanks, clothing banks and the Toy Rescue Mission. Her children all volunteer as well. Steph started the Food is Free Garden and Tacoma Food is Free Fortress during the summer of 2019. Before that she helped start The Pantry, which was a foodbank at Grace Place Church. Having been hungry a few times in her life and having experienced hardships like homelessness and real needs, Steph feels she has to help however she can, whenever she can. She said, “I honestly can’t NOT help.”

Nidhi cofounded a youth volunteering organization called Michigan Youth Volunteering Alliance, or “MYVA,” which focuses on engaging youth in community activities and serving people. This organization was started in pandemic times when she realized that youth and senior citizens are impacted with anxiety, stress, depression and isolation.

Nidhi founded MYVA initially with five youth members and now they’ve grown to 28 youths. MYVA’s main focus is on fighting hunger and as part of this they deliver meals to senior citizens who are homebound and unable to prepare meals for themselves. A friendly hello at the door can brighten the day for aged citizens and can even save lives. During the fall, MYVA teams help by raking leaves at retirement homes.

In Michigan, one in seven kids struggle with hunger. Through MYVA, youth have completed multiple donation drives to raise food and cereal for kids in need of food, and a can and bottle drive collecting around 1,000 bottles and cans. The money raised was used to buy 150 cleaning supplies for the local neighborhood care house.

Another project delivered virtual story reading for kids in Detroit schools who may not have access to a quality public library due to the pandemic.

Amelia’s mom volunteered for foster care organizations and she had several friends that are foster parents. So Amelia understood that it might be scary to have to leave your home and go live with someone you don’t know. She thought that a night light may make that a little less scary.

Amelia’s mom posted on Facebook that she was collecting lights and donations started coming in from all over the country. Amelia organized a day at school where every kid that brought $1 or a nightlight could wear a hat to school one Friday. A local business also donated an extra $200. Together they raised enough to donate over 500 nightlights to local children in foster care.

The news heard about her project and the story aired on the local channel went viral. Amelia ended up on the CBS national news. Munchkin Brand Toys in California heard about her story and sent an entire pallet of night lights to her house. Lisowe’s Lights was officially born. Since then they’ve donated 10,000 night lights to all 75 Arkansas counties, all 50 states and even 3 European countries. They work with over 200 foster care organizations to distribute lights in their communities.

Rajani founded Unite & Inspire, along with two other co-founders, Suchitra Tangirala and Deborah Banerjee, with a mission to unite and inspire people into giving back to the communities through volunteering services.

In 2020, she led the group of 200+ volunteers with a strategic partnership involving local nonprofits, designing and developing remote and virtual methods of addressing the needs of community. U&I team and youth volunteers distributed 25,000 pounds of food supplies, 5,000 school supplies,15 devices for online education and 1,500 hygiene supplies to 12,000 families in local communities affected by COVID-19.

Volunteers served 1,000 health care workers with distribution of PPE, food and gratitude gift cards. During the snowstorm, they served 500 families with hot meals, essential supplies and recovery care packages. U&I volunteers conducted 3200 hours of educational workshops teaching math, science, digital arts, coding and computer languages to special needs children, underserved youth and community patrons in Houston and its suburb towns.

The team served 500 senior citizens during the pandemic, uplifting their spirits and keeping the mental health intact through remotely conducted interactive and engaging activities. Rajani inspired the volunteers to raise awareness about bone marrow registry and blood donation which were quite low during the pandemic.

Dynasty’s dysfunctional childhood motivated her to found the nonprofit organization Dynasty’s United Youth Association (DUYA) in 2014. DUYA’s mission is to ensure that all children and youth have access to quality programs that promote character and cultural competence. Dynasty partnered with the Los Angeles Public library to provide free tutoring, homework assistance, job-readiness workshops, college and career advisement and social-emotional support to youth ages 5-18 in urban communities.

Over the past seven years, DUYA has helped over 800 students pass onto the next grade, recruited over 80 tutor volunteers, provided employment and internship opportunities, assisted over 20 students with college admission processes and provided college textbook grants for high school graduates. 90% of students return each year.

In March 2020, DUYA converted its entire curriculum to a virtual platform within one week to continue delivering services. To fund and execute a virtual program, DUYA launched its Virtual Learning Program with council member Herb Wesson and the L.A. Public Library to prevent students from falling behind grade level. DUYA also hosted a campaign called “closing the gap on educational inequalities,” where they raised $115,000 to sponsor more tutors and technological support for the youth who were severely academically affected by school closures.

From a young age Ailiya has been close to nature. She has participated in clean up drives in school and currently works as a volunteer at Greenpeace India.

Ailiya’s realization that our planet is in a climate crisis came when she saw a jellyfish floating towards her – dead. Jellyfish are Ailiya’s favourite aquatic animals and she was saddened by the sight she had to witness. She was told that it was due to the intense heat waves passing through the state because of climate change.

Ailiya knew she had to do something for the betterment of the planet and created Youthopeian, an organization educating youth about the environment and technology. Ailiya strongly believes that technological solutions can be developed to tackle environmental problems. Through her initiative she raises awareness about the environment and motivates more people to pursue careers in environmental science and environmental engineering to create a real difference.

Ailiya was able to impact 7,000+ students from 30+ countries through Youthopeian and grew her team to more than 250 members. They’ve established seven chapters around the world and are actively hosting events such as webinars and competitions.

When Lisa got an autism diagnosis for her daughter it was terrifying and lonely and she felt helpless. Lisa used the recovery time while battling breast cancer to build a nonprofit that would bring moms of special needs children together.

Labeled & Loved’s mission is to embrace and strengthen families with special needs by providing connective experiences and educational resources.

They host a weekend retreat for special needs moms with nationally acclaimed speakers and breakout sessions. Their video channel, Sunshine in the Spectrum, provides parents with practical tips for positively parenting across all abilities, led by a board-certified behavior analyst.

The L&L Sticky Notes for the Heart was created to offer hope in the midst of parents’ most vulnerable days with intentional and inspirational texts filled with encouragement. In-person and virtual Moms Mingles offer connection through theme-inspired dinners and much-needed nights out. Their Podcast showcases stories of hope, inspiration and experts in the field with awe-inspiring guests each week.

Virtual groups led by trained and background-checked volunteers will launch soon, as will a multimedia program inspired by the lack of resources available when teaching about puberty/maturity, sexual health and personal safety with application for the special needs population included.

Twelve years ago, Saif started volunteering at the Women’s Intercultural Center in Anthony, NM. The executive director wanted Saif to update all of their technology. Thinking it would take about a week Saif volunteered for a month and brought in new computers, established a database to track participants and volunteers, made the technology eco-friendly by decreasing the amount of paper used and so on. In seeing their day to day operations, Saif saw the impact that they made and instantly fell in love with the organization and stayed.

At one time because of knowledge of the organization, Saif served as acting executive director. One notable program is the Border Awareness Experience which brings in high school, undergraduate and graduate university students and faculty from all over the country to be immersed in border life, culture, immigration issues and other areas of interest based on their degree plans. It introduces young people to true border life and erases those common misconceptions they have of the culture.

Through Saif’s time at the Center, there have been an array of opportunities to help the border region and lend helping hands to those in need.

Dion was enlisted in the US Marine Corps, serving as cook and infantry, from 1977 to 1983. Upon discharge, he joined the NYC culinary world and trained under David Burke at the Park Ave Cafe, receiving the true meaning of fine dining. Dion climbed the ranks and became an executive chef.

In 2011, Dion served as a football coach, mentor and creator of Culinary Cadets afterschool program at a local middle school in the Englewood, NJ community. In 2013 Disabled Combat Veterans Youth Program (DCVYP) was 501C3 incorporated by State Of New Jersey. This nonprofit is geared to empower youth with mentoring, leadership, academic strategies and a jump start into adulthood.

In 2014 Dion volunteered as a culinary arts professor at Bergen Community College (BCC) in Paramus, NJ for six years. In March 2020, when COVID-19 invaded the world, Dion went full throttle and created Table To Table Tuesday’s food distribution in the Englewood, NJ community, partnering with worship houses and local nonprofits. They distributed over 2 million meals to residents and military veterans in Bergen County, Jersey City and Passaic County.

Paul is a longtime volunteer coach in the Durham RBI summer league, helping to revitalize baseball in the Inner City. Paul helps them play and practice baseball a few hours a day, giving them something to work on, developing them into successful teammates and young men, teaching them to work together for a common goal, to be an integral part of something special and to look forward to those days on the diamond for reasons more than just a game.

The team becomes friends and family, staying in touch for years. In the 2019 season, Paul had the honor of being a coach for the 16-18 division all-star team that became the first RBI team from North Carolina to advance to the RBI World Series in Vero Beach, Florida. For many of the players, it was their first real road trip, first time on a plane, first time away from home and their parents. Paul couldn’t have been prouder of the way they represented themselves, respected the opportunity to be in the national spotlight and embraced the other players from the other teams and other cultures from across the country as friends and interesting individuals more than just as competition.

When the local school district started giving out meals to all children in the community, ages 1-18, regardless of homeschool, private school or public school, the Jewish community asked about Kosher meals.

Yoni took the initiative to find a local distributor to accommodate the Kosher-keeping community. Yoni started with giving out just under 12,000 meals per week and am now up to over 30,000 meals per week. By the middle of June 2021, Yoni will have given out over 1 million Kosher meals to the local South Jersey community.

What started as a small couple-week project has blossomed into a 20 hour per week volunteer job to make sure that all children in the area are fed. Yoni also collaborates with the local food pantries to donate extra items including over 1 ton of milk each week to the local food pantry and is now working to fundraise to make this program permanent even after the pandemic is over.

Sara has seen firsthand the poverty endemic to an underclass of working poor in Cali, Colombia. 30% of Colombia’s economy depends on daily activities such as street sales and garbage recycling. These jobs provide just enough to cover basic daily needs in good times.

The pandemic has been devastating, as many in this underclass became unable to work due to sheltering restrictions. In June 2020, Sara decided to bake and sell cookies to generate money that could be donated to help those in dire need in Cali. She learned how to design a website through YouTube and created HumanKINDcookies.org.

The generosity of the US community to this initiative has been overwhelming; to date, Sara has baked and distributed 7,520 cookies, raising close to $10,000 for food. Her project continues to be not only a stable source of food for vulnerable families but also an inspiration for others to embark on similar activities. Three families joined her initiative and baked her cookie recipe in different geographic areas, while companies in Colombia have partnered with her for Christmas and art events to multiply the impact of her efforts. She has a rigorous academic schedule yet has never stopped baking to help others.

Allan works to spur strategic philanthropic investment toward critical community groups and to catalyze positive change.

He led the Thornburg Foundation’s response to COVID: working quickly to provide more than $850,000 in relief to non-profits serving families experiencing hunger, homelessness and farmers critical to food supply, and to partner with state government to leverage $1 million in emergency food relief to native communities on lockdown.

Allan co-chaired the NM Census Funders group, which raised $1.2M for 83 community-based organizations to encourage the state’s hardest-to-count communities to be counted. Recently, he helped start a pooled fund to support a healthy entry for asylees and another to support victims of domestic violence, which have both increased during the pandemic.

The foundation team uses bi-partisan, evidence-based approaches to catalyze meaningful and lasting change in the fields of education, governance, water, agriculture and social services. Allan firmly believes in service to others, starting from his time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala to now serving on local nonprofit and education advisory boards, advising social entrepreneurs and using his role to drive philanthropic action.

Aryan believes that the harder you work, the luckier you get and always tries his best in whatever he does. Aryan is a passionate individual who thrives to bring out the best in others as well. He’s been working with students since August 2020, helping them to have a better perspective of their actual skills, talents and strengths through his nonprofit, Optiverse.

Until May of 2021, Optiverse had mentored for 480 hours and expanded reach in 10 countries and nine states. Optiverse has also been conducting weekly workshops for underprivileged students and pediatric patients suffering from cancer.

The team also spreads awareness through various NGOs and trusts via collaborations. At Optiverse, the team also thrives to build one’s personality as well as enhance analytical, oratorical and writing skills. The Optiverse course includes design thinking, life maps, strength forms, free writing, skill worksheets, decision making, English strategies, identity building and gratitude journals.

Mentors are students from all around the world with a passion to connect and help other children. Since Optiverse is an organization devoted to provide accessible learning to all sections of the society, the course is 100% free for all!

Pranavi was inspired to start her project, Kindness4All, when she saw that not many people in her community were aware of the power of spreading kindness. Pranavi wanted to share this with them to create a movement to make kindness the norm.

Through Kindness4All, Pranavi aims to inspire other youth to participate in acts of kindness and community engagement to become leaders of change and positivity. To accomplish this, every week she conducts different “Kindness Projects” that people of all ages from all locations can participate in. Some of the previous projects include encouragement letters to women facing breast cancer, appreciation cards to local frontline workers and food pantry volunteers, fundraising money for Disney books for under-resourced elementary schools in the area, food drives for local food pantries, creating “Birthday Boxes” to help the underprivileged and “Kindness Packs” for children in hospitals.

Since their founding, Kindness4All has conducted over 100 different “Kindness Projects” that people could participate in. Through Pranavi’s initiatives with Kindness4All, she’s been able to help make the lives of over 50,000 people better with acts of kindness while inspiring another 90,000 people about how kindness can make the world a better place.

When Bridget had her first child in 2011, she was astounded by the amount of stuff required to take care of a baby and how expensive it could be. Meanwhile, she knew some of her neighbors were likely struggling to afford these things. Bridget learned that many parents have to make extremely tough choices when it comes to raising their babies – do they pay the electric bill or do they buy diapers? She decided that there had to be something she could do to help. Initially, she wanted to collect unneeded baby essentials and donate them to an organization who could deliver them to families in need. However, she realized quickly that there were no central agencies in New Jersey that were distributing diapers or any other baby essentials to families who couldn’t afford them. So she decided to do it herself, founding Moms Helping Moms Foundation – a NJ Diaper and Baby Supply that provides hundreds of thousands of free diapers, clothes, strollers, formula and other baby essentials each year to low income families all over New Jersey. They continue to be one of the only places these families can turn to for this type of support.

Tejasvi, a high school junior, is the founder and executive director of SHE: Sustainable, Heard, Empowered, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which strives to eliminate period poverty and stigma in our society. She is directing four high school wide SHE chapters in California. Her initiative promotes the usage of reusable pads. Disposable pads contain dioxins from bleach that can harm the uterus. Statistics show that about 800,000 women die yearly due to lack of access to proper sanitation in the U.S. Each disposable pad contains the equivalent of about 4 plastic bags. That means every woman discards about 40,000-60,000 worth of plastic bags throughout her menstruating lifetime. Disposable pads are harmful to women’s health and the environment.

During the pandemic, Tejasvi has conducted donation drives. Several care packages have been donated to women’s shelters, containing reusable pads, masks, hand sanitizers and dental care kits. Tejasvi is also focused on spreading awareness about women’s health and beauty standards through social media and other platforms.

Tejasvi aims to empower many women around her by conducting more such initiatives. She firmly believes that you empower yourself by empowering those around you.

In addition to overseeing the middle school’s athletic and extra-curricular programs, Kelly also implements service-learning into the district’s offerings. She has created the ‘Zionsville Do Days’, a span of several days in March where all classes (pre-school through high school), clubs and teams focus on a service project of their choosing, helping to serve organizations from all over the county. This past year, more than 30 organizations in the area were involved, including the local Humane Society, several nursing homes, the local park and food pantry.

Additionally, Kelly also leads students on service learning trips to Bolivia, Haiti, Nicaragua, Mexico and San Francisco. Over the course of the past 10 years, she has taken more than 400 students on these service-learning trips. While in these areas, students have the opportunities to work in medical clinics, volunteer with the homeless, host sports clinics, teach English and build homes.

She is relationship-focused, believing that students can discover passions and talents they never knew existed if they get outside of their comfort zones. By serving others, students are able to connect on unique levels for the betterment of their school, community and beyond.

Cynthia is the president of StarStyle® Productions, LLC. She was inspired by her dying farmer dad who said he lived his dreams. Cynthia’s mission is to empower women, families and youth. In 1999 she founded and is the executive director of the all-volunteer charity, Be the Star You Are!®. Without a salary, she orchestrated the assistance of thousands of individuals and distributed over $2 million in resources.

Cynthia produces and hosts the weekly life-affirming broadcast, StarStyle-Be the Star You Are! and gives youth a voice via Express Yourself! Teen Radio. Through Operation Disaster Relief, BTSYA provides emotional recovery to evacuees and survivors. During the pandemic with artistic community venues shuttered, Cynthia affords radio interviews to creatives. As a New York Times bestselling author, Cynthia published eight books. She raised chickens, drove tractors and picked fruit to fund college as the first in her family. She was the Outstanding Teenager of California and a teenage ambassador to Holland.

Cynthia’s goal is to inspire, encourage, inform and motivate others to be their unapologetically unique selves.

14-year-old Ashley has dedicated herself to making a difference in her community through her 501(c)3 Sargeant’s Army. She started Sargeant’s Army to honor her cat, Sargeant, who died of cancer. She started by donating hand-sewn cat toys to local animal shelters. In 2020 she started sewing and donating masks to essential workers. After donating masks to a homeless outreach event she decided that she wanted to do more. She now creates and donates Hope Bags filled with hygiene items, socks and a kindness card to outreach programs throughout the state of Arizona. To date she has raised over $32,000 and donated over 12,000 Hope Bags to 21 different outreach programs in Arizona and neighboring states. Knowing how few volunteer events there are for younger children, she now hosts packing parties for the Hope Bags to provide volunteer opportunities for them.

Another way she gives back is by writing and illustrating children’s books on pressing social issues. She has published two books with a third on its way and all proceeds of the books are donated 100% to Sargeant’s Army. Each book sold equals a Hope Bag going to someone who needs it.

Sahana co-founded Foundation For Girls (FFG), a social impact organization to economically empower homeless single moms and support their children. FFG was founded in December 2014 and at the time, Sahana was 8 years old. Today, FFG invests in women to be financially savvy, digitally capable, career confident and socially connected for multi-generational change. FFG’s 4-pillar programming in financial well-being, career journey, digitally forward, and circle of care equips moms and their children with resources, relationships and recommendations for their journey to financial stability.

During COVID, when the world was shutting down, FFG, with Sahana’s leadership and by leveraging technology, has expanded to nine states – CA, IA, WA, GA, NC, SC, TX, MD, DC. Over six years, Sahana has spearheaded FFG’s impact investing in over 2,500 homeless single moms and children (approximately 300 moms and 200 children per year) so they can become self-sufficient and financially resilient.

Growing up with a stuttering problem accompanied by severe anxiety, Kristin knew firsthand how it felt to freeze on hearing her name. She was relentlessly ridiculed by others, often taking flight when encountering difficult speaking moments. She gave presentations alone to teachers. She went to college to major in dance and after an ankle injury, was forced to create another path for her life.

Kristin is a role model of how persistence and perseverance result in resilience, and she has dedicated her life to evolving as a person and speech-language pathologist. After working with others who stutter for over twenty years, she co-founded, along with Julie Raynor, a non-profit program called Camp Shout Out. Approaching its eleventh year, this overnight program creates positive experiences communicating for kids ages 8-18 who stutter, and desperately needed hands-on training for both graduate students and professionals. As one parent shared, “It’s a game changer.”

Caramia started Digging for Diversity in January 2021 to help combat increased social tension and lack of open forums to express viewpoints. Her community needed a safe space to speak one’s mind without fear of reprisal. She accomplished this by founding a program based on the Native American talking circle, an open-space allowing people from different backgrounds to discuss topics without judgement.

Her team has hosted and broadly attended MLK Day of Service and Global Youth Service Day events. Digging for Diversity provides a planned hands-on service-learning component, themed cultural food-sampling and open discussion forum themed around current issues. “Speak and Paint Your Truth” GYSD event featured expression of personal feelings through painting of 38 canvases forming the sentence: Racism isn’t getting worse, it’s getting filmed. This powerful statement is on display at a regional youth center. Caramia and her team are focused on expanding their program to other communities.

It was the pathetic mews of a hungry mother cat, scrounging in a dumpster to feed her kittens that first caught Robert and Katherine’s attention. The chance meeting between the hungry strays and two computer programmers led to the creation of Rude Ranch Animal Rescue.

Since 2001, Robert & Katherine have led the effort to improve animal welfare in their local jurisdiction and throughout Maryland by creating one of the first no-kill animal sanctuaries, a regional state-of-the-art high volume, low cost spay/neuter clinic (2012) spearheading creation of groundbreaking animal friendly legislation (2018).

Thanks to Robert & Katherine’s efforts, many local & government animal organizations have become no-kill entities. Animal euthanasia rates in their jurisdiction have dropped to almost zero. Animal Euthanasia rates in Maryland have dropped over 6% since 2012 when Rude Ranch began aggressively promoting spay/neuter for all animals.

Nesa was walking her child to school when an elderly crossing guard mentioned her A/C was not working. Nesa asked her husband to go to her home to take a look to see if he could repair it. They were shocked to see the condition of the house. No A/C, roof leaks, mold on the wall, septic backing up, stove/oven not working, and plumbing backed up. It was heartbreaking. The person that protected the couple’s children every day and was loved by so many needed help.

Nesa quickly set up a working committee assigning tasks and securing donations to renovate the home. Over six weeks with the Flower Mound Lady Softball team support, the group could replace the roof, replace all the windows, replace the A/C system, paint the interior, replace rotten wood, clear the septic system, and install new drywall and bathroom fixtures.

It was a fantastic feeling for Nesa and the team to know that they could provide a safe and comfortable home to someone who cares for and protects their children every day on their walk to and from school.

Qjiel founded Streets to Schools when he was only 15 years old in 2016. His work involves aligning the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) to ensure that the needs and rights of children, especially those in poverty, are addressed. In 2019, the Philippines ranked last in reading in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Qjiel and his team deemed that there was a great need to teach literacy to children as a lot of children in the Philippines graduate junior high school without ever learning how to read and write. Through his efforts, he has empowered children and adolescents aged 5 to 18 to proactively champion the 2030 agenda by publishing a storybook that advocates SDGs and literacy. Volunteers all over the world then story-tell these published books through online platforms to further inspire this generation to address our world’s most pressing problems. Being an agent of change, Qjiel celebrates the participatory rights of children as their model of innovation allows children to learn about community problems and contextualize SDGs in their situations. This allows young people to become global citizens while championing literacy at the same time.

Rylee is a 15 year old freshman in high school who, since the age of six, has selflessly given her time through community service through multiple projects of her own, as well as through service under other organizations. She has served as a Jr Committee member for the Salvation Army Vineland corps for many years through their holiday turkey drive, as well as throughout the pandemic doing food distribution multiple days per week. Rylee began her own initiative at age 9 called “choose wise words,” where she speaks to groups on the importance of removing words in our everyday language that offend others. Rylee also authored a book of the same title that she uses as a teaching tool for younger audiences. Rylee has earned her Gold PSVA every year for 10 years, and recently earned and was presented her presidential lifetime achievement award. Rylee has a heart for homeless individuals and spends many days providing meals both in soup kitchens as well as on the streets of her city. She holds food drives for local pantries, held a toy drive for her birthday, and created and donated 90 Easter baskets for underserved children.

CAAP, the Community Activism Awareness Program, established in 2005, is Benton Central’s oldest, largest, busiest club doing good in the school and community. Their motto is “Do not prepare the path for the children; prepare the children for the path.”
The faculty sponsor for these past 15 years has been Ms. Sandy Herre. CAAP is comprised of around 60 hard-working, service-minded high school students.

CAAP fundraises and leads supply drives and projects throughout the year to help others in need – children, adults, and fellow teens locally and afar, animals, the environment, and the world. Sandy and the team lead their own projects and partner with other groups to boost their efforts.

CAAP acts as a certifying organization for this respected national program, established under the George H. W. Bush Administration, and recognizes students who have donated significant hours of their personal time in service each year.

Nivin Suresh made a decision that instead of gifts for his 11th and his 12th birthdays, he wanted people to donate to St. Jude’s Cancer Center.

COVID-19 has brought storm clouds of anxiety, which masks the sunshine of millions of individuals around the world. In April 2020, Natalie learned that people with mental health conditions were struggling significantly more during COVID-19 due to feelings of isolation, increased stress and high-anxiety. Empathizing, she knew that she wanted to spread sunshine to people struggling with mental health conditions.

In May 2020, Natalie started her own international mental health organization, Solely Sunshine. The organization’s website provides the opportunity for anyone to volunteer to write virtual letters of encouragement, which get transcribed to paper by her team of over 100 teen volunteers.

Natalie says, “The best part about running Solely Sunshine is hearing the positive feedback from the letter recipients. One recipient said, “I was desperate, I was even thinking about suicide… I sincerely thank you for your help. I’m really grateful. I will try my best, I will look at your message everyday.’” Since May 2020, with the help of people in over 50 countries and 43 states, Natalie and the team have mailed/received approximately 8,000 letters of sunshine, impacting over 10,000 people (the writers and recipients).

Chef Maria Loi has many titles (chef, entrepreneur, Greek food Ambassador, TV host & healthy lifestyle expert) and is passionate about changing the world one healthy bite at a time. But helping others truly lights up the soul of the woman known as the Julia Child of Greece.

A dedicated philanthropist, she’s deeply involved with the Loukoumi Foundation, which helps children work toward career dreams. She’s a co-founder of Elpida, a foundation supporting children with cancer, oversees a fund that grants scholarships to underprivileged students and works with Careers through Culinary Arts Program, Citymeals on Wheels and The Center for Discovery’s Dept. of Nourishment Arts as a DaVinci Master Chef.

Through her namesake NYC restaurant, Loi Estiatorio, Chef Loi has provided tens of thousands meals since March 2020 to firefighters, the homeless, the elderly and others. During the height of the pandemic, she also delivered hundreds of meals a day to frontline healthcare workers at NYC hospitals – making and boxing many of the meals herself. Most recently, she was honored as Neighborhood Hero by the City of New York for feeding anyone in need of a nutritious, delicious, healthy meal during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Soon was educated at Hongik University in Lithography in Seoul, South Korea and graduated in 1992. She also has experience studying at SUNY at New Paltz in Lithography. Soon has over 30 years of experience teaching art students by helping them with their college entry portfolios and art contest submissions. She has taught both private and public school students in the field of art as a private Art Instructor. In Raleigh, North Carolina, Soon has owned her business, Soon’s Art Studio, for the past three years. Soon teaches mainly third to fifth grade students in watercolor and pencil drawing. The mission behind her teaching is to help students become better artists by improving their artistic skills. In 2016, Soon came up with the idea to direct the North Carolina Art Contest through the Korean Wave Federation in Raleigh, North Carolina. As a judge, she gave art scholarships ranging from $100 to $1000 to help with their education. Soon became Vice President of the organization and assists with an organization called Korea Fest yearly.

A bridge is defined as “a structure carrying a pathway or roadway over a depression or obstacle.” While Siena may not be building a physical bridge, she is mending a pathway allowing children and adults to walk a safer path.

Having endured hardships of her own, Siena learned to overcome her difficult past through helping others heal. Her personal situation changed dramatically because of the support received from the Bridges program located in New Hampshire. Bridges is a nonprofit organization that provides free services to support people in need of crisis. She is grateful for the support that she was provided through Bridges. This is why she chose to dedicate her time and service.

Her mission is to raise awareness for what children facing violence are going through.
Although she is extremely passionate about solving the issues of domestic violence she spends her time volunteering for many different organizations in hopes of touching the lives of many young and old. Together, let us eliminate obstacles that stand in the way of our bright future.

This year, Olivia made masks for first responders in her community. She wanted to find a way to help people during the current times and there was a mask shortage. Olivia got a grant to make them and was excited to help those at risk everyday. There were many steps involved. It took a long time, but it was worth it.

Over long days of designing and sewing masks using different prints like flamingos, space themes, and Dr. Seuss, Olivia finally completed them!

She donated masks to the library, fire department, and school. Seeing teachers wearing her masks during school makes her smile. We couldn’t have gone through this year without teachers and other frontline workers. Olivia is thankful she could help because she got so much out of it and had fun doing it!

Amy is a long time community leader. She has been involved with Laotian American Society (LAS), since its inception in 2002 and has served many roles, including its president in 2015.

Amy is also a member of many other nonprofits such as Who’s Who in Asian Americans Communities (WWAAC) and Asian Pacific American Council of Georgia (APAC). Amy was the liaison between Miss Universe Organization and Miss Universe Laos Organization in 2019 and 2021. In 2020 Amy helped to create Care Packages for Laotian Americans in Georgia during COVID-19 and as of today it continues. Amy’s been a speaker on a few panels, most recently invited to speak to the White House Initiative on AAPI commissioners and leaders during a town hall meeting as a business owner and community leader. Amy had also been invited to speak to the Gwinnett Multicultural Advisory Committee.

Amy is very passionate about her community. Not only is she a member of many organizations, but she also volunteered for many others. Amy was honored as one of the 25 Most Influential Asian Americans in Georgia in 2015 & 2017.

As a woman, her opinions are suppressed. As a lady, her behavior is criticized. But Amandeep Kaur couldn’t be repressed and she knew she was going to pass this message on to other women in her household, community and globally. Amandeep chose this path when overhearing a single conversation at age 12 about her father providing free care to a female patient in an unfortunate situation. From that moment she knew that she wanted to impact other’s lives like her father, just in a different way; Amandeep wanted to be the voice for women who are suppressed.

Amandeep began as an executive board officer for non-profit organization SHE (Sustainable, Heard, Empowered). At SHE, Amandeep helps engage the young women in her community to work towards tackling issues such as menstrual poverty and societal stigmas through youth-led projects. Over time, Amandeep branched out as the team lead in creating an advocacy campaign against the Sexual Abuse Of Women and Children in Bauchi, Nigeria using education to spread awareness. She doesn’t just make a difference in her community but in a community 7,880 miles away. Amandeep is fulfilling her grit by working towards a better today and an ideal future.

The heart of Chinmayi’s service lies in expanding the accessibility of online STEM events, opportunities, resources and mentorship for young students, especially within the field of neuroscience. Neuroscience (the study of the brain and nervous system) affects every single one of us on a daily basis, from the time we wake up to the time we go to sleep, yet many students do not gain exposure to understanding their brain until they are adults and well into college.

Expanding our understanding of brain health from a young age is essential, and Chinmayi is on a personal mission to revolutionize the way we think about early student involvement in neuroscience through an interdisciplinary lens of education, outreach and awareness coming together. In 2019, Chinmayi founded an entirely student-led neuroscience non-profit organization known as Simply Neuroscience, and to date, we have been able to empower tens of thousands of fellow peers in making change at a grassroots level during the COVID-19 pandemic. Neuroscience holds great innovative potential, and as the next generation of physicians, scientists, politicians, creators, entrepreneurs and advocates, we are collaborating to unlock the future, one neuron at a time.

Hannah’s mom, an immigrant who raised her and her little brother alone, taught her that education can make the American Dream. Hannah grew up in the poorest metro area in the nation. There are very few educational resources available. At age 11, she was selected to the U.S. Team and won co-champions in the Primary Math World Contest in Hong Kong. For the first time, she knew that a girl from an underprivileged community can be an international champion.

Returning from HK, Hannah founded San Antonio Math Include to offer greater access to STEM education to all students from different backgrounds, experiences, and cultural perspectives. In four years, she led SaMi to 7,183 students and 206 volunteers from 429 schools in 38 states and four continents. They have offered 15,692 free classes, written 300 pages of curriculum and established 28 national chapters. They’ve raised $104,018 in funds and created 1,641 Casting Your Future Scholarship for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Collaborating with Stanford AI Lab, they’ll introduce Artificial Intelligence to 133 local high schools and 103,140 students in 2021-23. Through the partnership with the UN Major Group of Children, their online classes are accessible to 170 countries around the world.

After being diagnosed with dyslexia, Caragan Olles founded Bright Young Dyslexics in 2013. Inspired to help others, Caragan has raised over $250,000 to fund phonics based tutoring and assistive technology for K-12 dyslexic students. She has educated over 2,500 teachers about dyslexia and how to accommodate their dyslexic students. She has impacted over 14,000 students.

After 9th grade, Ellie tried to find an internship where she could apply her experience in graphic design, but for a variety of reasons she found that to be very difficult. Soon after, she met other teenagers who complained of similar difficulties in securing internships and/or volunteer opportunities that could fit into their busy schedules. So, she set out to find a solution.

She interviewed several local nonprofit organizations and learned that all needed help with one technology task or another — tasks that would be ideal projects for tech-savvy teen volunteers. With prize money from a social entrepreneurship competition, Ellie filed for nonprofit status. Then, she built a website and began advertising for high school students interested in volunteering and for charitable organizations in need of assistance. The response was overwhelming. To date, more than 10,000 students have signed up to help the organization’s 250 nonprofit partners with website design, programming, social media marketing, photo management and other technology projects. Ellie’s network also offers a tech hotline, lesson plans and homework assistance to help teachers, parents and students adapt to the new COVID-19 academic environment.

For thirty years, Judy has worked to improve the lives of children with special needs. Her commitment to volunteerism came from having a son diagnosed with cerebral palsy after a traumatic delivery. Judy set upon an unexpected path of creating needed change and greater awareness for children with differing abilities, including her son. After Eric’s birth, Judy published numerous articles about the rewards/challenges of raising a child with a disability and published a parenting guide to help other families better meet their challenges.

“Breakthrough Parenting for Children with Special Needs: Raising the Bar of Expectations,” was groundbreaking. When Eric died in 2003 at age 12 from complications of disability, Judy co-founded the Eric ‘RicStar’ Winter Music Therapy Camp to honor Eric’s gift for music and provide priceless access to music therapy for people of all ages with disabilities. The award-winning RicStar’s Camp, now in its 19th year, has served over 1,700 campers to date. Judy also spent a decade volunteering as a certified therapy dog team, serving the needs of challenged Michigan elementary students. From great loss, Judy’s passionate commitment to volunteerism has created lasting, beautiful change.

Lauren Bartel has recorded nearly 2,000 community volunteer service and leadership hours across numerous organizations and highly impactful activities, positively affecting the lives of almost a million people. Lauren has helped lead the worldwide Youth Climate Summit, has testified as a youth subject expert before local, state and federal officials on the environment and climate change, has been a digital volunteer at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, has conducted groundbreaking research at the world-famous Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and is one of 250 students nationwide selected to be part of the Washington Youth Summit on the Environment.

When the pandemic hit, Lauren started a story-time program to virtually read aloud books to kindergartners, and what began as a local program at her school grew into a library of videos distributed to a homes across the U.S. She began a new peer tutoring program at her school, serving hundreds of students through volunteer peer help. Lauren also personally developed and established a nonprofit called Our Bright World, which supports and recognizes teenagers who are inventing and innovating new programs and projects that solve real-world problems.

You don’t ever forget the hurt that was done to you when you were a child. Like the rings on the center of a tree, the hurt is deep, but still there. Eva dedicated her life to helping children who endured abuse. They are not bad kids like she was not a bad kid. She was hurting, hungry and ignored by her community. So were her siblings. It was hard for her especially because her skin is black. Eva grew up in the south, but never gave up hope. Whenever she could, she helped others.

The thing is when you grow up with nothing, you don’t need much. Eva worked and worked, as a seamstress and as a mail carrier. Slowly, she saved enough to start charities that could give kids what I never had: a safe and loving home.

First it was a daycare, then group homes for teen foster boys, whom nobody would help. Then a foster agency in Barstow, CA, a community whom nobody would help. The kids Eva has served she considers her own kids. She shows them unconditional love. The team at A Greater Hope continues to give children just that: A Greater Hope.

Ayo Handy-Kendi, aka The Breath Sekou and Mama Ayo, the Storyteller, has been a volunteer for most of her adult life, imitating her mom who served as a volunteer most of her life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., upon moving to Maryland in 2013, she got involved, volunteering with The Town of Capitol Heights, particularly with its Community Health and Environment Committee (CHEC).

Ayo has served by bringing her expertise as a breathologist to Capitol Heights Day and has presented cultural programs – such as Kwanzaa Candle-lighting Ceremonies, World Breathing Day and the Mayoral awarded Black Love Day, Feb. 13th celebration, of which she is the founder. As CHEC agreed to address the food-desert issue within the town, Ayo has used her 50+ years of community-based organizing, fundraising, program development and promotional/graphics skills to help coordinate the ribbon-cutting for the town’s new community garden and to help in the development of a food co-op. Her efforts have made a difference in the health and sustainability of her community and for this she is to be commended.

Empowering women and girls around the world to shine through economic and education opportunities is Jennifer’s focus! Jennifer went to Kenya in 2013 and over the years worked in various community projects. The after school girls meetings on topics such as leadership, boundaries and self worth, later bringing a community health worker along to discuss menstrual health, were growing. The adult women’s groups on income generating skills were also growing! Jennifer filed the project as a 501c3 and appointed a Board of Directors to support the work.

All of these years later, The Angaza Project has reached hundreds of women and girls, offered scholarships to High School (it is not free in Kenya and so many don’t get to go), created a path to higher education in universities partnering in Nairobi and connected to local master crafters for the women to train on skills that enable them to earn an income with dignity. Jennifer returns to Kenya several times a year to continue this work with the team and partners and even replicated the women’s empowerment in Mexico.

It has been said that the giving of one’s time to others is the best gift one can give. As a volunteer nothing is more rewarding to Cayla than to hear “thank you for being here.” Cayla began volunteering at a young age and has meet so many different people from different parts of the country. One thing she has learned is that everyone has a different story and you will never the same story twice. Volunteering has helped Cayla cherish her ability to influence and impact others in a positive way.

Through her organization “The Gold Ribbon Project,” Cayla has dedicated time to advocating for pediatric cancer. She has hosted fundraisers, collected toys for toy drives and prepared meals for families. More recently, Cayla has had the opportunity to attend CureFest in Washington, D.C., and Climb the Hill, where she personally met with senators and representatives to encourage them to provide more funding for pediatric cancer research. As a freshman at The University of Scranton majoring in Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology on a pre-med track, Cayla is determined to advocate for her future patients. As the recipient of “The President’s Lifetime Achievement Award,” Cayla’s hope is to make a difference one gold ribbon at a time.

In 2018 Ramis relocated from New York to Austin. New to recovery in a new city, with no connections, he applied for volunteer support services with a nonprofit organization, Communities for Recovery, which supports long-term recovery from substance use and co-occurring conditions. Ramis says that volunteering super-charged his existing skills while helping him build new ones such as accountability, peer support, advocating, mentoring and leadership. Volunteering didn’t change only his life but the lives of his whole family.

Through volunteering Ramis has built a strong recovery and social network. He is a co-founder of the Spanish-speaking peer support group Groupo Latino de Recuperation, which is focused on helping underserved demographics. Ramis volunteers with Communities for Recovery partnering agencies by leading support groups, mentoring peers and advocating for all who are seeking recovery. Since 2018, Ramis has volunteered over 3,900 hours.

Adds Ramis, “By helping others, I felt needed in the community. Not only did it boost my self-esteem, but other people also benefited too. Volunteering is a great opportunity to improve yourself, others and the whole community”

Alessaundra started Sharon’s Closet 559 as a way to continue and honor the way her parents had raised her, to give with a smile. For many years Alessaundra’s parents have been a huge resource for help, love and support to so many in their community and she wanted to be the same.

Giving out free clothes and shoes to the many in need in Fresno has been such a blessing to her. To see the community smile, laugh and sometimes cry tears of joy in these hard times is so encouraging. As Alessaundra and her team travels through so many different areas of Fresno, they’ve met and served over 1,000 people since their start in September 2020. They hope to continue to be a point of light in their community for many years to come.

Operation: Military Matters was started in November 2015, as part of a school project by nine-year-old and fourth grader Graci Tubbs (now 15 and in 9th grade). After hearing and seeing veterans speak at a school Veterans Day assembly, Graci felt the need to support the U.S. military and let the men and women sacrificing their lives know that people back home cared about them. What started out as a school project collecting supplies from the community and sending care packages from home to the military overseas grew into a nonprofit.

Today, Graci speaks to civic organizations and the military to let them know about OMM. Her efforts help raise support and donations to continue sending care packages to the military. More than 5,500 care packages have been sent to military members around the world and Graci has raised more than $130,000. Graci receives letters from the military telling her how much the care packages are appreciated. Here’s an example: “With COVID, being away from home and our workload we have all been a little down and unmotivated. We just got the packages about an hour ago and everyone’s morale has completely changed! Smiles and laughter all around!”

The community of Sunland-Tujunga and Shadow Hills needed a newspaper to inform its citizens of what was happening and act as a platform to help in local elections and provide information on local events and organizations that were pulling the community together. Dr. DeMulle’ brought together a team of volunteers to create and operate The Foothills Paper for over 16 years. Because of the high fire danger in this rural community, he became involved with the local fire stations and provided on-site journalism of what they were doing, illuminating the individuals fighting the fires.

Eleanor’s story of community service started in September 2011 after reading in the newspaper that 19,000 healthy homeless pets were being killed each year in her border city. After founding Pennies FUR Pets, Eleanor asked for donations at local coffee shops and events to help homeless pets in her community. Everything led up to Make A Difference Day 2011, where volunteers of all ages came — from high school and college students to her third-grade classmates — and Pennies FUR Pets was recognized as a top ten National Make A Difference Day project that year.

Eleanor is now one of seven youth serving on the Points of Light National Youth Council. She helped donate $57,300 back to homeless pets, used a grant from Disney to speak to over 2,500 elementary school students on how to take care of their pets, and founded Kans for Kids to benefit food insecure children in her community, which helped donate over $60,000 worth of food and establish a sustainable food pantry at a poverty-stricken elementary school.

Tanveer is an MBA with a steady and upward career path. With a wide network of professionals, he aims to create a much bigger network and a better world. With his good interpersonal and networking skills, he is very effective in communicating with different stakeholders, understanding their needs and potential and helping to make the right connections, thereby creating a win-win situation.

Tanveer founded and launched Kolkata Heroes, not merely a concept but a platform to celebrate grit, determination and perseverance for an inclusive society. Kolkata brims with many heroes, mostly the unsung ones. Kolkata Heroes has successfully executed Heroes Awards, Run for a Cause, networking events, volunteer training and placements. During the COVID 19 pandemic, Kolkata Heroes launched its newest initiatives, such as Volunteer Hero Awards & Community Connect. And under Community Connect, relief has been arranged for almost 13,000 families and has been a catalyst to connect groups & communities.

Overhearing a conversation about an incident involving an abused child, 13-year-old twins Maya and Arjun were curious to learn about child abuse, CPS, foster care and underprivileged children. That led them to get their friends (Lakshanya & Ved Solipuram, Kavindu & Imaaya Weerasinghe, Ronit Maganti, Aarini Mehta, Arisha & Eshaal Merchant, Advaith Govind and Sriram Susarla) involved and start a club called mission BE A Resource (BEAR).

Since September 2020, despite the COVID pandemic, they have volunteered at multiple charity events, food banks and Christmas toy drives. They have donated books, shoes, supplies and Christmas gifts to CPS children; helped sort books, made cards, kids meals and care packages for cancer patients; and held a school supply drive where they raised $1,000 worth of supplies. They recently received the PVSA for their commitment to service. Their mission is to support children in need through donations and volunteering and they are eager for summer break to start so they can continue to volunteer!

Maya has a brother who was diagnosed with autism eight years ago. Maya wanted to make a difference for her brother and others like him. At age 12 she established the powerful Siblings and Friends Network to encourage other siblings of special needs individuals and their friends to come together and advocate for the creation of a special needs-inclusive country.

Maya leads a team of 200 youth volunteers who organize events regularly. She conceptualized and executed the first Autism Fun Day and Autism Christmas Party in her country along with an annual summer camp. She organizes Autism Outreach Booths throughout the country, especially in rural areas where she educates the general population on special needs. All the events are free and open to anyone with autism. Under her leadership, this group not only actively campaigns for the creation of opportunities for those with special needs but actually conceptualizes, organizes and executes these activities themselves, thereby setting an example for government and other organizations to follow. Maya has influenced an entire generation of youths to become special-needs advocates and changed mentalities in a country where special needs individuals are deeply marginalized.

Ethan Ye, a junior at Irvington High School in Fremont, CA, was thoroughly inspired after hearing his mother’s detrimental experience of growing up in Vietnam facing period poverty while prioritizing her family over her menstrual health. Seeing his community suffer from a similar fate, he gathered a coalition of students utterly passionate about the cause and established Students Against Period Poverty, a fully student-run organization that has made a monumental difference in their communities’ menstrual health.

So far, Ethan’s strenuous efforts have led to a collection of 22k+ menstrual products, fundraised $8k+, established daily grab-n-go menstrual item pickups at local schools, created a menstrual health blog, started a volunteer program with 160+ volunteers that donated 1.2k+ menstrual care packages and letters in just ONE year to local shelters, led menstrual health lessons in local schools to 300+ students and organized a menstrual health-related summer leadership summit to inspire attendees to advocate for menstrual health equity while easing period stigma in his community. In total, his nonprofit has worked almost 2,000 hours on their efforts to combat period poverty alone and he doesn’t plan to stop anytime soon.

STEM is a field that is traditionally dominated by men. But Sriya Tallapragada, an ambitious middle schooler from New Providence Middle School, is out to change that. She created GirlsWhoSTEAM a year ago as an effort to share her love of the field with others.

When COVID 19 started and her middle school shut down, Sriya decided that now more than ever she would need to create an online community for women in STEM. She launched GirlWhoSTEAM after coding the website and crossing her fingers. Over the past year, the impact she has made is momentous.

Their programs and online workshops have had more than 2,000 participants globally and have impacted an estimated 9,000 girls. They have hosted more than 40 events and speakers. Sriya leads a team of 100+ volunteers who work to run these initiatives.

Her favorite event has been GirlsWithGoals2021, an online conference that brought more than 500 girls worldwide to listen to empowering speakers and launch a startup over the weekend.

She hopes to start expanding into social-distant in-person events and workshops.

Neha Misra is an inspirational Climate Justice Advocate, poet, and contemporary folk artist with a deep belief in the power of human imagination to create new realities. A first generation immigrant from India, Neha’s lifelong civic leadership spans global, national and local points of light. A Presidential Leadership Scholar, Neha co-founded the award-winning social enterprise Solar Sister, which combines green power with women power to bring light, hope and opportunity to millions across sub-Saharan Africa.

Neha is the inaugural Global Ambassador for Washington-based nonprofit Remote Energy, which is making the solar installation field more inclusive, and a Solar Suitcase Ambassador for California based We Care Solar which serves midwives and frontline maternal health workers across the developing world. In her adopted home in Maryland, Neha serves on the board of the local arts organization, Silver Spring Town Center Inc., which has been supporting diverse intergenerational communities through the extreme isolation of the pandemic. In 2020, Neha launched a multi-disciplinary Earth stewardship-centered creative studio which is using the power of poetry and art to inspire people everywhere to re-claim and share their light.

Linda was a Star Trek fan as a teenager. In 1984 she started a chapter of Starfleet, the international Star Trek Fan Association. As the years have gone by they have become a philanthropic organization, raising funds & supporting 10 local charities at Christmas, including the Salvation Army Food Pantry, Free Clinic of Central Virginia and two local Humane Society shelters.

They annually send a local middle school student to NASA’s Space Camp in Huntsville, AL for a week long stay. Currently they’ve sent 11 students to Space Camp. Linda was fortunate to have found 63 other people who are Star Trek fans who share her enthusiasm for being a helping force in the community. She is also a breast cancer survivor and speaks at seminars about breast cancer. She has one published book & a second that will be out this summer. Linda freelances and had a story published in Chicken Soup for the Soul, has hosted a local TV talk show for 6 years and continues the very important work of the club, Heimdal Science Fiction, a local non-profit within the community.

Henry and his team worked for several weeks to make the Tech for Kids Camp as memorable as possible. He focused on making his Eagle Project having to do with STEM-related activities. Henry’s passion is robots and the computers really shined. He wants to share his knowledge with as many youths as possible. His Tech for Kids program was successful and he plans to offer this camp for many years to come.

Hannah has been working our project since September 2020. She created a Pen Pal Project to help Girl Scouts keep communicating. She knew that with everyone staying home and not able to stay time together as a troop, that she needed to do something. She started writing letters to a couple of her Girl Scout sisters, and from that, her Pen Pal Project soon had 180 Girl Scouts writing to each other.

Hannah also wanted to help with issues like mental health and education. She knew that many families were staying home and weren’t able to leave their homes. So she wanted to start a project that would help with isolation and depression. She knew that if Girl Scouts were writing that this would also help with literacy. She is 100% devoted to her project and all that it has been doing to help Girl Scouts from across the nation and even in Japan.

Don first became a Minnesota Master Naturalist volunteer in 2015. He has completed all three biomes of the Minnesota Master Naturalist program (North Woods-Great Lakes, Big Woods-Big Rivers and Prairies & Potholes.) He is actively engaged in recording species in iNaturalist.org.

Don is an active contributor to the Minnesota Bee Atlas, contributing more than 1,600 observations to the project. He is always at the ready to volunteer where he is needed, doing Christmas bird counts, pulling invasive species, “maple syruping” at St. John’s Outdoor University and lending a hand at Camp Ripley during National Public Lands Day. He has become a great outdoor photographer, putting his talent to use at Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge. Following his Bee Atlas experience he has created educational materials sharing his knowledge of native bees in Minnesota with others.

Belinda & Celina, two nurses, moms and best friends, co-founded a charity non-profit named Celebrate Birthdays, an organization that makes sure every foster child and all children in need have the opportunity to celebrate their birthdays and receive a present!

Prior to the pandemic, they were throwing birthday parties in multiple foster homes and organizations celebrating the youth, but when the pandemic began they were no longer allowed on campuses and quickly had to pivot, creating a mobile “Birthday in a Box,” a 10 x 10 box filled with 16 items, a birthday gift for the child and a book to promote literacy. Belinda & Celina not only have worked on the front lines of COVID-19, but have given back through the gift of birthdays to make sure every child gets to celebrate theirs!

India J. Mayo, CPA, is board treasurer of The Evoluer House (TEH), a non-profit organization providing education to impoverished teen girls of color in Philadelphia. As a Black woman who forged her way into one of the world’s top accounting firms, India knows first hand the importance of educating young girls and dedicates herself to getting them to where she is today.

India began educating women on finance at NYU as president of Smart Woman Securities. She found multi-cultural, successful women to exemplify female success in a male dominated field and taught seminars to her peers. As president, India helped over 50 college women successfully complete seminars and gain tools to invest in their future.
After graduating, India began work at PwC while continuing to serve her community. She serves as a mentor for underrepresented students of color, creating opportunities for them to follow her path. As board treasurer at TEH, she uses her background to ensure every dollar donated is making an impact and that the organization can grow. She transformed their accounting process, enabling TEH to double their revenue. Annually, she teaches financial literacy, giving girls the financial tools to break the cycle of poverty in their communities.

Since she was a kid, Vinaya Gunasekar has worked to bring science and technology educational resources to other kids like her. She got started with STEAM by creating a science wing at her elementary school through her elementary class’ initiative, Project R.O.O.T. Now at age 13, Vinaya is an environmental activist, educator and STEAM changemaker who is passionate about recycling and using technology to benefit our earth in innovative ways.

She is a member of all-girls FIRST Robotics Team Infinity & Beyond and is an ambassador of The STEAM Connection. Vinaya is currently working on making STEAM accessible to hospitalized children and is co-hosting the Hands-On Techie Talks podcast with Danielle Boyer to introduce kids to STEAM education during the pandemic, as well as working on her robot, named Auto Oscar, to clean recyclables off of school campuses.

Dwantrina Russell is the Founder of Gustavia Pearls Women’s Outreach. She is passionate about helping others and has invested her time into organizing many programs that benefit the community. These include delivering meals to seniors & veterans, provide free clothes, home goods and appliances to single mothers and families who are faced with financial challenges, and monthly community food distributions. Dwantrina has also developed programs to bring awareness to Mental Health, Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) Education.

Dwantrina enjoys volunteering because it gives her a chance to build strong relationships and get to know the people in the community where she serves. Her goal is to address the needs of the community and bring solutions that will make a lasting change.

Tori Hope is one of the nation’s leading foster care advocates. As a former foster youth herself, she has done much to lift up youth in foster care and vulnerable families. Tori is the founder of Bring Beloved, a nonprofit that grants foster youth the opportunity to share their stories of trial to triumph. Tori is also the founder of the Fostering the Good Scholarship, a scholarship rewarded to foster youth or students in extreme poverty. She is the co-director of the the Brave Leadership Academy which aims to give women who have been human trafficked leadership opportunities in their community.

Tori is a biological, foster and adoptive mom. Tori and her husband Jacob took in a young man who had previously been sleeping in public restrooms. They generously offered him a home, relentless support and then adopted him in February of 2021 promising him a family forever. Tori values opening her home to others and serves her community by keeping an open door. She believes the best way to show people love is to be an example, not just use words. Tori has been named Mrs. Minnesota Universe and will be competing for Mrs. Universe 2022 in July. She is writing a memoir with B&H Lifeway publishing to educate current foster parents.

Katie Curland serves her community by giving a voice to children and women as an advocate for those who have experienced abuse and domestic violence. She drives to strengthen community response to situations of child maltreatment directed towards abuse prevention. Her efforts have supported over 100 families in Utah.

Katie acts as an ambassador for patients and families fighting cancer. As a survivor herself, she encourages family involvement to make and keep happy memories. Katie creates experiences for patients to live life while they are fighting by coordinating resources. Katie serves in relief services with the American Red Cross and responds by coordinating meals for families who have been evacuated from their homes due to fires and other disasters.

Growing up, India’s family made sure that they understood the importance of caring for one another and developing relationships. India saw their mother buy food for the homeless and uncles donating their time and money, and India wanted to make sure that they continued to do that when they left home. It started when India began working at their school’s civic engagement office, and from there they learned more about giving back and doing for others outside of my community. Being a kind of coordinator instead of just a volunteer gave India insight that they never had before. India has learned a lot in their short time on this earth, and they can’t wait to learn and do more for not only their community, but for communities everywhere.

While working for a national animal nonprofit in 2007, Dianne McGill received a call from a woman whose friend was dying and had no one to care for her two cats. Her friend’s hospice had no way to provide pet care and she was trying to find help for her friend. Her friend was heartbroken at the prospect of losing the loving companionship of her two cats and even more upset about what would happen to them after she died.

Dianne started searching for help but could not find any local or national program designed to help seriously ill patients with their pet care or rehoming needs. It was at that moment she knew it was time to solve the problem by starting a national program to help hospices provide care for the pets of seriously ill patients who had nowhere else to turn for assistance. McGill founded the national Pet Peace of Mind program in 2009 to ensure every seriously ill patient has access to the pet care assistance they need before and after they die so they can pass knowing their pets will continue to be loved and cared for in new homes. Today Pet Peace of Mind has chapters in 42 states and utilizes thousands of local pet care volunteers to serve more than 3,500 seriously ill patients and their pets each year.

Michaela always had a deep-down need to serve her community. It started at age 3 as a desire to give money to homeless people so they knew they were not forgotten and that they are very loved. At age 5 she asked people who attended her birthday party to bring items she could use to create Christmas Eve boxes for kids living in shelters. In 4th grade she founded Bundles of Love Club. She realized just giving money to the homeless was not enough and she could do more. Now there are 16 chapters delivering bundles of survival supplies.

She decided to begin a new phase of her work. She calls it 144,000 Acts of Kindness. It’s her opinion that if she can engage that number of people all doing the same act of kindness, a paradigm shift will occur in the world’s consciousness. She created packets of golden nuggets with a card that is either passed on to someone or left to be found. People who perform acts of kindness feel good about themselves. People who receive feel good. That energy is passed on and on and on until a wave of positivity shifts the vibration of the world!

Miran has always valued education and after realizing the need to improve schooling not only in his community but also internationally, he decided to create Strive2Thrive Edu. This organization is dedicated to improving educational systems and infrastructure in underserved areas around the world. He has grown the organization’s impact over 4,500 people in need in over 35 developing countries, by leading a team of over 450 volunteers and partnering with over 40 organizations across the world, and contributing over $136,000 in value of supplies and services.

Through his organization, he has focused on various programs including enhancing the capacity of underfunded educational institutions through teacher training programs, increased support for underrepresented groups in the 21st-century economy and workforce through technical training workshops. Moreover, he works to support at-risk students through academic tutoring programs. He has also worked with underfunded schools to build libraries and computer labs to improve educational infrastructure in underserved communities. Lastly, through his various initiatives, he has aligned his organization with over eight United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Mrs. Melody Jie Chen is a passionate educator with rich teaching experience. After immigrating to the U.S., she worked full-time at Northwestern University library and continued her career devoting all her spare time and energy to the overseas Chinese education. She is a Xilin Chinese school’s founding teacher and also the co-founder of Chinese schools in Chicago area.

In her 3o years of teaching practice in Chicago, Melody has studied western educational theories and integrated Chinese traditional values, using various teaching methods to stimulate students’ interest in learning and to cultivate their learning ability, bilingual competency, social skills and worldview vision.

She has taught students at different stages with impressive results and many of them won awards in Chinese wring and speech nationally and regionally. Mrs. Chen has received many awards, such as “Overseas Excellent Chinese Teacher” and “Outstanding Teacher in Overseas Chinese Education” by different Chinese associations including Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council of China, Chinese School Association in the U.S., Xilin Association in Chicago, and others.

Bill is the Disaster Response Coordinator at First Presbyterian Church of Kingwood which is a part of the Houston Responds, Lake Houston Coalition. After volunteering as an individual to assist people whose homes had been flooded by hurricane Harvey, Bill became aware of the work that Houston Responds was doing to bring together nonprofits and faith organizations. He saw the value in leveraging resources in his area so that people could be assisted more effectively with a reduced duplication of efforts.

Bill got together with his pastors and key members who had been involved after hurricane Harvey and identified the best ways First Pres could respond to a disaster. A half dozen focus areas were identified and teams were established for such things as laundry, meals, pre-event assistance, post-event disaster assistance, volunteer coordination and communication. He then recruited team leaders and co-leaders. This was followed by a churchwide survey to recruit members for these teams allowing people to serve where they felt called. Bill remains ready to serve but is praying we will escape hurricanes this fall.

Micaella has been donating her time and resources since she was a young girl. She was born after surviving an attempt on her life while in utero. She came into this world severely premature and then placed in foster care. Adopted at age 5, she began her fight to make sure all who came into her path knew that they were important and loved.

Currently Micaella assists others in feeding the homeless, bringing them blankets and giving them rides to shelters in the winter. She is an avid spokesperson for the bettering of foster care systems around the nation and stands fervently to protect life starting in the womb. She has marched for Right to Life, several Christian walks and is a friend to the LGBTQ community. She believes that no matter what someone has done or been through they have the infinite right to be loved. No man is greater than the other. Micaella continues to be a beacon of hope and light in her community and around the nation.

Isabelle (age 17) and Katherine (age 15) learned almost 10 years ago that girls in developing countries often did not get to go to school because they were transporting clean water all day. They also learned that a child dies every 15 seconds from unclean water. These facts caused them to start a project making origami Christmas ornaments and exchanging them for donations to raise money for water wells.

In 10 years, these two girls have raised over $2,500,000 and have helped fund over 300 water projects in 20 countries: Ethiopia, El Salvador, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Kenya, Liberia, Mexico, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Peru, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and a Navajo Indian Reservation in Smith Lake, New Mexico. Isabelle and Katherine want nothing more than to educate the world about the clean water crisis and to make people realize that you don’t have to be a billionaire or a celebrity to make a permanent change in the life of someone who is thirsty.

Godfrey Molen is the founder and executive director of Friendly Loving Opportunities (FLO), a nonprofit dedicated to providing a variety of services to the homeless and low-income communities of Baltimore. FLO serves them with respect for their dignity. He was inspired by his mother, Ms. Florence Egbire-Molen’s insistent call to action to help others by providing aid to the community. She stressed the joys of giving and exemplified that example by providing basic care packets to homeless individuals each week.
In honor of her life, he began a regular program of distributing goods – snacks, toiletries, water — to inner-city homeless individuals.

FLO is committed to instilling hope by providing resources and services that restore confidence in individuals and families experiencing hardships and/or homelessness. Their work directly enhances individual and community potential and increases stability, improving the quality of life for underserved populations by providing care and access to services and items that they need.

Saran Nimmagadda is a high school junior in Michigan. She has always done service work with her family since she was young. Her first experience of service was when her family would go to a meal packing center and would pack hot meals for senior citizens on Christmas every year. She was often involved with service in school as well and liked to stay behind to help teachers clean up their classrooms or help the cafeteria staff run the after school cafe. One of her favorite parts of the school year was when her school would run a week of service and would send students out to various charities in Detroit to help others.

She, her mother and her brother all participate in food packing and delivery every weekend. She is always looking for different organizations where she can help out and even recently started her own organization to provide aid for her community. Saran plans on starting it as a club in school. Service has always been a part of her life and is something she always enjoys doing and plans on doing for the rest of her life.

Randy volunteers as a Medicare counselor through the State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) in New Jersey. SHIP provides counselors with extensive training, periodic updates and many other resources. These include presentations providing an overview of Medicare which Randy uses to educate clients. These presentations are also an opportunity to promote SHIP and make SHIP’s assistance available to a wider audience.

In addition, he often meets with clients one on one for a variety of reasons. Open enrollment and an annual review of each person’s plan choices is recommended and makes the end of the year a busy time for counseling. He also meets with people new to Medicare to help them understand the program and complete their initial enrollment. Much of the work involves helping people who qualify based on income and assets for one of several assistance programs. This assistance includes help with completing applications, gathering documents and interpreting instructions. Many clients are unaware of the assistance available to them or find the processes for applying confusing. All of this assistance helps people on limited fixed incomes to save on their health care costs and achieve peace of mind.

Mark and Paula are some of Northwest Assistance Ministries most faithful volunteers. When the pandemic hit, they knew where they needed to be. They have volunteered at the food pantry every day since the pandemic began, working tirelessly to make sure neighbors have food to sustain their families. Clients drive up and bags of groceries are loaded into their car. Preparing those bags and loading them into cars are just two of the roles they have filled. They also pick up donations, sort food, stock shelves and do it all with a cheerful, humble spirit.

“It was not something we thought a lot about,” they say of their decision to continue volunteering during the pandemic. “It was the right thing to do; we knew we were needed.” Volunteering has become a family affair for Mark and Paula. Three of their grandchildren also volunteer at the pantry. The love they have for one another is evident in everything they do.

Each day, at least one child dies from a home fire & almost 300 children injured from fires or burns. Dayna Hilton, a retired volunteer firefighter, has delivered innovative educational fire safety training to millions of children & their families since 2003. Volunteering 3,000 hours annually, Dayna & her canine companions, the Fire Safety Dogs, travel over 25,000 miles a year across the U.S. sharing their fire safety program. In addition, the team have Skyped their program with children from 34 countries & “traveled” almost 1M virtual miles

Whether sharing fire safety in a barn, large venue or Skyping in the middle of the night with children from other time zones, Dayna works tirelessly to help save the lives of children. One life saved was Angelica, 5, who shared, “Firefighter Dayna~ I was in bed under the ‘cobers’ and the smoke came. I crawled out of bed & crawled low, just like Sparkles [the FSD] showed me.” Immediately after getting her family outside, the home became totally engulfed in flames. Thanks to Angelica’s quick thinking, she is now a teenager. With the “power of the paw,” Dayna hopes to help keep more children like Angelica fire safe.

Service has been a part of Art’s life for decades. He currently serves on the Executive Board of YMCA International Refugee Services where he has volunteered for five years. Art served on Houston/The Woodlands Executive Interfaith board for six years, providing humanitarian assistance to thousands. He serves as a volunteer with The Church of Jesus Christ, organizing service and work projects for flood and hurricane survivors throughout the Texas Gulf Coast. Together they have assisted some 8,000 residents, mucking out flooded homes and rebuilding properties.

Currently, he has taken the lead in establishing a migrant respite center in Houston to help relieve the suffering of thousands of migrants. They are providing them a place to eat, clean up and get on their way. It’s a massive humanitarian community effort involving several Houston-based NGO’s. On a national level, he served as the vice president of The National Association of Hispanic Journalists Organization for several years and was president of the Houston Association of Hispanic Journalists. Together they rallied the support of countless businesses in providing more than a half million dollars worth of scholarship funds to struggling students. It’s a blessing to serve!

Meera is the co-founder of a nonprofit called Bykids4kids. The nonprofit’s mission is to serve all children and to inspire change in the world. Meera has always had a passion to help other kids; she really believes that it doesn’t matter your age, all people can help each other. Through the organization Meera has helped start a program called Kindles4Covid. Despite the pandemic she really wanted to do something to help. This program is done virtually via Zoom and helps kids build friendships, while increasing the amount they read.

Meera also started a project to help collect shoes and donate them to an orphanage in India called Little Stars. She personally went to India and was able to help many kids just like her. Meera always strives for to be the best and is passionate about what she does. Meera has recently started a project working to start a 5K, with proceeds going to help with the COVID crisis in India. During the beginning of the pandemic Meera made homemade masks and hand sanitizers and distributed these to her local community.

60% of obese children are at risk for heart disease. Avni decided to curb childhood obesity by making exercise fun through dance. In 2017, she founded a 501c3 nonprofit organization called Change Will Happen. Her mission was to make the world healthier one dance step at a time. She partnered with the American Heart Association to form the first ever high school club called Stuy STEM Goes Red. Then she made a free dance club to get the kids in her community moving. Her club performed at NYC’s annual dance parade in 2019. During the pandemic, Avni taught dance to over 200 kids virtually. She organized lectures from physicians and mental health professionals. Each discussion was attended by hundreds of students and their teachers. Avni has led medical camps in her community and medical missions to countries like Haiti and the Philippines. To finance her endeavors, Avni judged middle school debates, wrote prize winning essays and authored and published two books as fundraisers. This Scholastic gold and silver key recipient sewed over 4,000 PPE items in 2020. Since 2016 her organization has collected, sorted and redistributed over 26,000 batteries, saving them from landfills.

In summer 2020, Anirudh approached Ridgefield Music Parents with an intriguing idea. He had been thinking about how the complications of remote learning during the pandemic had been challenging for maintaining engagement and connection. He especially noticed, and personally experienced, the challenges when music programs and performance ensembles could no longer meet in-person. Music is a collaborative experience and eliminating the ability to meet in-person had been disheartening for students who thrive in school music programs.

Anirudh brought together a small group of key organizing students and they established the structure for the program. In collaboration with Ridgefield music teachers, Anirudh coordinated the growth of the program into schools where high school and upper-level middle school music students provide remote mentoring twice per month to early middle-school and elementary students. Participation in the program is voluntary but it quickly expanded to over 200 students! In a time where students feel so disconnected, it’s been extremely powerful to connect younger students to high school musicians who can serve as practice coaches in these students’ music education.

Theresa is a survivor of human trafficking and started The SOAP Project to educate people that it DOES happen in the United States, even in the suburbs. She wanted to help those still caught in the horrors of being sold to strangers. It takes a lot to convince people that there is no such thing as teen prostitution and that there are millions of runaways who are being victimized. Since the start of her nonprofit, she has had over 100,000 volunteers come to SOAP outreaches and given over 2 million bars of soap labeled with the national human trafficking hotline number to thousands of hotels and motels all across the U.S. They have attended 10 Super Bowls, 8 Detroit Auto Shows, NASCAR races, the Kentucky Derby and many more events where trafficking is rampant. Many young girls have been rescued by her courage and conviction. Due to her efforts, a law was named after her in Michigan where she was trafficked as a teenager. The ‘Theresa Flores Law’ removed the statute of limitations for minors who are trafficked so that they can persecute their trafficker whenever they are ready, no matter how many years have passed.

Joseph Mahtab founded social media-based community platform “People’s Voice of Amtali – PVA” in 2017. PVA embarked on journey to highlight the potential of sub-district Amtali, Bangladesh to take effective initiatives to address local social issues and improve the quality of service by building a bridge between the general public through government, public representatives and policy makers via virtualization. The a2i division of the honbl. Prime Minister’s office has innovation talks about the success of this group, which currently has members in 101 countries around the world, with brand ambassadors in 6 countries.

Following the success of the group, this model is being followed in Kenya and the initial work to follow this model has started in Andhar Pradesh in India. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Joseph and his team have warned people to wear masks, wash their hands regularly and maintain social distance. During this time, approximately 200,000 masks, 3,500 hand sanitizers, 32,000 soaps and 1,000 baby foods were distributed with the financial help and material support of various individuals and social organizations.

KaCey co-founded Helping Empower Youth (HEY!) with Marc “KD” Boyd in 2011. As two AmeriCorps alums they wanted to find a way to give back to children on what was once the poorest street in Georgia. As the organization grew, KaCey would continue to help provide wraparound services to youth and communities that are underserved, mainly communities of color. While most organizations were pulling back services at the height of the pandemic, KaCey and HEY! ramped up services. They engaged and worked with black male teens on Atlanta’s Westside who were selling water at intersections to make money in order to care for themselves and many times their families. After assessing the needs, KaCey and the dedicated team worked to create new programming, recruited advocates, helped to find jobs and connected youth to entrepreneurship training. KaCey is fully committed to changing the narrative for these young black teens who would have otherwise been lauded as creative entrepreneurs if not for the color of their skin and zip code. As a result, KaCey has been instrumental in affecting change in the lives of youth who now understand they have opportunity to chart their own course.

Volunteering has offered a piece of sanity for Ashna over the past year. People all over the world have been confined to their homes, with limits placed on what they wished and were able to do. But through various programs, volunteering has given a means of connection with people within the community and across the world. For example Ashna spent 90+ hours speaking and tutoring students in Ukraine about English. Not only were the students in Ukraine delighted with the opportunity of honing their skills, Ashna was able to foster connections with the students — seeing some regulars over the months at each session and just having some excellent discussions. It was incredible to see that no matter how far apart people are, they all have similar experiences. It is a great reminder that we are all going though this time together and that we are not alone.

Volunteering, serving others and having a servant’s heart has always been a large part of Jan’s life. Touching lives through the act of seeking to serve them in some way is touching hearts that are hurting and may possibly lead to changing someone’s life. Working in different places that do this changes Jan also.

Wichita Littlest Heroes is one of those organizations that reaches out to the families who have children with serious, life-threatening illnesses. The organization allows Jan to be part of the amazing ministries they give to the kids, the moms, the dads and the entire families, helping ease in some way the struggles they face every day. Jan says it’s a privilege and honor to be a part of serving others so that they can have hope, have a little bit of happiness and know others do care in making life better in their struggles.

Ronit Notkin, LMSW is the program director for the JASA Bronx Friendship House, a psychosocial club funded by the NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene. It helps older adults living with a mental health condition or co-occurring disorder improve & maintain successful community living. It allows members to increase their social connections, support and understanding of available community resources and opportunities.

Ronit is passionate about helping members find new and creative ways to learn and grow alongside one another and as individuals. She appreciates the opportunity to help expand community engagement and connection which further improves quality of life. She gets energized and inspired by her team daily. It is an honor to be a part of their recovery work and to witness how they develop friendships, take on new challenges, increase self esteem, enhance living skills and take on leadership roles within the community. Ronit wishes to share this honor with her entire team at JASA, the go-to non-profit for older New Yorkers, serving 40,000 seniors annually.

Dr. Pristika Ram, a 25-year-old from Tamil Nadu State, India, studied homeopathic medicine and received her certificate of Bachelor of Homeopathy Medicine and Surgery (BHMS) from Dr. MGR Medical University Tamil Nadu State.

She periodically visits a elder care center to give medical checkups and treatment on an honorary basis. In 2018, the Pudukkottai District was badly affected by the Kaja Cyclone. Pristika collected food items from the students of her college that helped 300 families.

Many people are suffering during the lockdown due to COVID-19 and Pristika raised money for donations and distributed food and hygienic kits that benefitted 500 people in her district. She associates with the local hospital to give homeopathic medical treatments for people who are asymptomatic or who have mild symptoms of COVID-19. She also participates as a part-time volunteer for programs promoted by the government and NGOS in her district to benefit girls and women.

For years, Cameron Climer has donated time to his local church, at a hippotherapy barn and by remodeling homes for those in tough situations. During the pandemic, he celebrated the town’s teachers by organizing “Think-o’ de Mayo.” Students made yard signs with appreciative messages and put out canned goods for the community food bank. He collected food and took pictures of the signs, amassing 400 pounds of food and countless pictures for the district’s teachers.

That same year, Cam began creating a comic book about teenage stress in high school. He wanted to help parents and their teenagers communicate about new stressors for students. He successfully created, wrote, published and promoted his comic book, 21st Century Teenager. To help people beyond his local community, he made the graphic novel digital, publishing it on Amazon. Now accessible anywhere, the project’s proceeds go to a youth mental health nonprofit. Cam was even asked to present about its subject material at a district-wide event about stress in high school. This is where Cam’s service story stops, but the tale is open ended; he expects to write many more stories in years to come!

After being shaken the gruesome nature of the struggles that many homeless people in his hometown, San Jose, face every day, Ishan started going door to door, asking neighbors for donations of hygiene items. He was stunned by the positive impact one teenager could make in just under a month. When the tremendous potential of youth all over the world joining forces to make a positive impact struck him, he started an organization, Essentials For Homeless, to facilitate students in holding drives to collect and distribute toiletry items to the homeless. He contacted schools across the nation to join his cause and dozens more like-minded youth joined the movement to organize hygiene drives. He is now in charge of 33 chapters in 10 U.S. states and five countries. Through this work, his organization has collected over 11,000 toiletries for donation.

WE STAND is an initiative that promotes inclusivity in education through diversifying the curriculum’s narrative. Alyssa’s story begins with her family’s nightly gatherings, where she learned about African-American history. Learning more about history piqued her interest. She became aware of the inconsistency in the history curriculum. As a result of this understanding, she was eager to learn more and was looking forward to February. For Black History Month, students would study black history. However, the discussion was limited to slavery and the impact of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks in the Civil Rights Movement. This aspect of history forced her to examine herself through the prism of the persecution she was subjected to, contradictory to the stories she had learned that showed black people in ways of strength.

She hopes to establish culturally relevant curricula through teaching youth through her initiative, and that as a result of her efforts, people of color will not have to go through what she did. She has recorded four public service announcements about Greenville’s black history, as well as collaborating with The Spot in Wilson, North Carolina to create an event for Juneteenth.

Vernelle has taught financial literacy classes since 2010 to those from 3-years-old to seniors. She finds it rewarding because it’s impactful to equip people with the tools that they need to help themselves rather than always donating money. To hear the class participants share how they will apply what they had learned to change their situations is satisfying and to receive a report on how the training impacted someone for their good is priceless. But the most warming appreciation of them all are the hugs.

The training is mostly delivered to public schools and nonprofits. Vernelle’s purpose is to help the participants manage their finances instead of their finances managing them. Delivering a gift is an analogy that she uses about her financial literacy training. The lessons that she teaches them are filling the box. Referencing how they spend their money today and where they want to spend their money tomorrow is like putting the lid on the box. Finally, her personal stories are like wrapping and tying the ribbon around the box.

The COVID-19 pandemic battered families, left parents out of work and shut children out of school. A student herself, Akshadha was shocked to realize her peers were losing normalcy and social connections due to remote learning, social distancing and other unprecedented changes. This disaster was terrorizing children worldwide, especially the underprivileged. She was determined to brighten their days. After much research, she discovered that one of the best ways to relieve stress is coloring.

She started by creating coloring books for children at her school. She drew each coloring page by hand, optimizing her unique illustrations for maximized stress relief. To increase positivity and compassion, she went one step further, writing inspiring poems and integrating them in her books to teach children valuable concepts like kindness, healthy habits, diversity and environmental-conscience. Her desire to touch more children’s hearts led her to launch the Color Me Happy organization nationwide. Currently, she has distributed her coloring books individually to over 35,000 children and 90 underprivileged schools. Akshadha’s coloring books have helped thousands of children battle pandemic stress while learning valuable life lessons.

Esther has spent more than a decade volunteering to serve active duty, veterans and their families. Coming from a long family line of military service, she has seen firsthand the sacrifices and the true cost of service. Her volunteer service has extended to leading volunteer teams and training new volunteer leaders. For the last four years she has also served as the Enterprise Military Support and Assistance Group (MSAG) Events Co-Chair for 13,000+ members.

In 2020 much changed but she continued – virtually. This included key initiatives such as the third annual Suicide Awareness and Prevention Month to help address the invisible wounds in recognition as National Suicide and Awareness Month. She has continued into 2021 wherein during Military Appreciation Month 2021, she led a team of volunteers in more than a dozen states to host live virtual sessions to welcome home military families receiving homes donated by Bank of America, hosted pledge drives to recruit volunteers to share their time and expertise as mentors to veterans, active duty military, spouses and partners, and participated in a second annual virtual relay across the country, wherein each teammate created a bib to show who they honored.

Seeing schools often neglect topics beyond academia, rarely providing room for social implications, Owen recognized shocking student indifference towards pressing societal issues. Striving to model change through community and project-based learning, Owen founded iEngage, an organization aiming to instill a drive for social responsibility from a young age. Through iEngage, he was able to target educational inequality for underserved children and further empower campers to take action on various issues in their community.

Specifically, iEngage’s Camp #AloneTogether served hundreds of campers where they created COVID awareness posters, prevention infographics and first-line responder thank you cards, and even fundraised iEngage’s Project Blossom, a project that delivers flowers to sensitive areas as a tangible expression of hope and comfort for mental health awareness. Amidst these polarized times, empowered by his belief that the arts has the power to transcend all differences and unite individuals, Owen also launched iEngage’s Arts in Mission program, collectively calling youth of all backgrounds to not only celebrate and represent their cultures, but also showcase their artistic talents through service, performance and education.

COVID affected high schooler Liam Fellows’ life on many levels. One bright spot was having his grandmother move in with him so she could be with family and receive their care. Liam felt fortunate to have her live with him especially when he saw so many seniors facing loneliness. In August, Liam’s grandmother passed away peacefully and he felt like he wanted to do something to honor her. After donating some of his grandmother’s belongings to the Florence Sylvester Senior Center in Laguna Hills, Liam noticed that the center had a “Meals on Wheels” program and that they were delivering 200 meals a week to vulnerable seniors. Liam brainstormed how he could bring some cheer into their homes and came up with the “Smile for Seniors Letter-Writing Project.”

Liam asked his Lion’sHeart service group and Laguna Hills High School Kindness-Club to write letters to the seniors to be paired with meals. Each group liked the idea and committed fully to writing enough letters for all 200 seniors to have colorfully illustrated letters to open each week. Since September, Liam has collected and dropped off more than 6,000 letters of hope with the help of his team.

Aryana is a 17-year-old from Houston, Texas. Her service began when she attended a Girls Empowerment Network event and it changed her life: she was inspired to ignite the spark in other girls, too. She became a volunteer intern during the following summer, supporting Girls Empowerment Network to grow in Houston.

This motivated her to begin her own club at school to discuss taboo topics affecting young women, such as mental health, period stigmas and bodily autonomy. Now, Aryana works with Girls Empowerment Network and the Excellence and Advancement Foundation to inspire more young women to engage in advocacy and civic engagement.

Yuri made a promise to his mother on her death bed that he would keep her legacy of giving alive. Before, during and after the pandemic Yuri will be on the front line helping those in need. His nonprofit, AFutureSuperHero And Friends, has delivered groceries to the elderly, given out pizza to essential workers, fed the houseless men, women and children, given out masks to the houseless community, fed houseless veterans, given away gift cards to essential workers, FaceTimed kids while dressed as superheroes, given away 300 toys to children in hospitals who couldn’t receive visits during the crisis, visited 165 homes giving away Easter baskets to kids, gave out STEAM bags to kids, held a back to school backpack drive thru giveaway and art kit giveaway, drove up and down the California coast at Christmas delivering baby Yodas to special needs children and participated in Pay It Forward Day delivering toys to children.

These are just some of the things Yuri and the team has done. Yuri says he’s found his purpose in life and this brings him so much joy.

Lyman has been a volunteer driver for the N.H. Friends Program for two years. He is an active driver and his customers have been very receptive to his companionship. A 49-year Rotarian and 50-year board member of the N.H. Boy Scout Council, Lyman serves on the Conservation Committee, as vice-chair of the Old Home Day Committee and is a trustee of the Trust Funds in his community.

Larry Werner is a US Navy veteran who has been volunteering with the San Diego Sheriff’s Department since 2016. Larry serves the department in two capacities: as a law enforcement reserve deputy, he assists by helping with various patrols and special details within the County of San Diego. As a Search and Rescue (SAR) volunteer, he participates in search and rescue missions and assists during times of natural disasters, such as fires or earthquakes. As a SAR instructor, he helps teach other volunteers the skills required to become field-qualified search and rescue volunteers and to keep their skills current. The mission of these two organizations is important to Larry because when they are called out to assist, it’s because someone is in a situation where help is urgently needed, whether it’s looking for a lost family member or helping someone who has become a victim of a crime.

Tony’s dream was to study in the U.S. He survived the Kosovo War of 1998-99 as a refugee separated from his family. A hard worker and natural leader, he was awarded the first full-tuition scholarship ever given to a foreign student by Texas Lutheran University. He graduated from TLU summa cum laude with a dual honors degree in computer science and math. He then moved on to Harvard to earn his first masters degree as a JFK Fellow. Later Tony earned another masters and pursued his PhD in Canada.

Tony’s TLU scholarship was the stepping stone that enabled the realization of his dream. He wanted to share such blessing with others. Since 2006 he founded and led, on a volunteer basis, the Education for Peace Scholarship program, part of his nonprofit educational foundation, through which he enabled dozens of deserving young Kosovars to study on scholarships in the U.S. Committed to this initiative, Tony changed the lives of so many young dreamers and their families and helped shape the future of his home country, Kosovo. Tony’s scholarship recipients all made a name for themselves in their study fields and became Kosovo’s shiniest points of light in the U.S. and throughout the world!

Benjamin moved to Vallejo, CA in 2008 and immediately began learning about his new hometown, a little-known gem of the San Francisco Bay Area. Benjamin’s arrival was at a critical time. The city had recently filed bankruptcy and the burgeoning housing crisis combined with years of economic downturn after the Mare Island Naval Base closed in the 90’s. One day while driving through town and seeing even more people asking for food and help on the roadside, he felt the call to help to feed people. With the help of his church, Faith Food Fridays launched in June of 2011, handing out single grocery bags of canned and ziplocked bags of food to 40 families.

Over the years, the organization added FREE services like haircuts, flu shots and financial literacy to necessities like personal hygiene, cleaning supplies, clothing and small household items. The overarching goal is to help the Vallejo community in whatever ways they need. Faith Food Fridays recently gave out new shoes to hundreds of kids, and serves over 2,000 people and 450 households per week. Long term, Faith Food Fridays wants to make it possible for every community in the country to start a like-minded organization.

Debbie Moore worked with her students to create community service events virtually this year. She did not let the pandemic stop her and her students from making a difference. They created a Virtual Ridge Run 5K to help the community get away from the computer. They had prizes donated and encouraged the community to work on their mental and physical health during COVID.

The students had over 100 folks engaged in the event. In addition, they worked with another club on campus to help with a food drive which was so needed this year. Literally TONS of food were collected for the local food bank. The students put together an online talent show that successfully raised money for cancer research. The students also created a virtual #RidgeGivesDay that was extended to a month-long event complete with a gift card prize promotion for people that posted their Acts of Kindness during October. And the students collected money for Dig Pink and Breast Cancer Awareness, efforts done online.

Maria has been working to help improve and transform the lives of underserved and homeless families in Los Angeles County since 1993, through her work founding the Children’s Lifesaving Foundation. When the COVID-19 pandemic really hit, we knew we had to do something immediate and impactful. Reaching out to some very loyal supporters and friends including the Open Hearts Foundation, the Carrie Estelle Doheny Foundation, Capital One, Rite Aid Foundation, LA Regional COVID Fund, Grindstone Entertainment, the CA Fire Foundation, Whole Foods, the Rotary Club of Santa Monica and the Venable Foundation (as well as some truly amazing family foundations and individuals) they were able to raise and distribute over $85,000 in direct funds to highly in-need families in the Vita Network and across L.A.

They also donated in-kind donations to UCLA COVID Ward nurses and conducted an extensive, festive Holiday Outreach distributing over 1,500 toys and brand new pieces of baby and children’s clothing to homeless shelters. It has been Maria’s honor to work with the Children’s Lifesaving Foundation and she is so appreciative of her fellow Points of Light nominees who have worked to make a real difference during this very crucial and challenging time.

Dana is CEO of Lazarex Cancer Foundation, a nationwide nonprofit she founded in 2006 after her brother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer and couldn’t afford the travel expenses to participate in a potentially life-saving clinical trial. Lazarex seeks to improve the outcome of cancer care and give hope, dignity and life to advanced-stage cancer patients and the medically underserved by identifying clinical trial options and reimbursing patients for travel costs associated with FDA clinical trial participation.

In 2016 Dana expanded Lazarex’s mission to bring transformational change to clinical trial enrollment, retention, minority participation and equitable access through the IMPACT (IMproving Patient Access to Cancer Clinical Trials) Program. Most recently she led the creation of a public health initiative in Philadelphia – Community IMPACT – which seeks to develop a replicable model to improve cancer health outcomes for residents in medically underserved and socioeconomically challenged minority neighborhoods.

Dana also serves as a Board and Council member of the Yosemite Conservancy. She and her husband are the world’s top investors in clean water projects in Africa and have given millions to academic institutions.

As the head director of Young Mentors, Emily is blessed with the opportunity to guide student leaders in establishing Young Mentor branches within their own communities. She hosted several training sessions that covered the basics of the organization’s core values, completing ASB guidelines for club establishment, reaching out to principals of local schools and publicizing to recruit potential tutors and students. As a relatively new organization, there was no pre-existing documentation to follow, so Emily worked to create each presentation and draft contracts for tutors and administrators to use.

Outside of training, Emily maintained communication with all the leaders to conduct progress checks and promote transparency at every level. The most important matter she wanted all leaders to take away was that they were not alone on this journey and could always look to her for support. Through personalized feedback and individual counseling sessions, Emily hopes she has been able to provide a steady pillar of guidance towards these passionate student leaders to encourage them in creating change within their own communities to bridge the severe educational gap between socioeconomic classes in the country.

Over the COVID quarantine Emma began volunteering in her community as many of her activities were on pause. She dedicated time and effort every week within the Douglas County Lone Tree Library where she has found a great community of individuals and aided with delivering books, shelving and kid’s camps. Emma has also been helping at Sky Ridge Medical Center during the pandemic. She says it has been great giving back and building bonds with those around her!

Being born in Syria of a poor family Izdihar had a dream to be able to help the marginalized and the underprivileged. As a fine art artist, Izdihar sold hundreds of her original paintings to provide food, education and vocational training for the needy. Her dream became a concrete reality as thousands of families of Syrian refugees fled the tragic war in Syria to relocate in Lebanon where she lives with her family. Her voluntary service with the support of the local NGO that she founded were based on genuine love and respect of human beings regardless of their gender, race, social status or religion. Her focus was on helping teenage girls, boys and young women to get relevant education and to learn a vocation so they can be independent and have a brighter future. For example, over 240 girls and women have graduated from the sewing schools. More than 600 newborn babies and their moms were provided with basic needs of food and medicine along with guidance on how to face the challenges of being a refugee. Izdihar organized and led several counseling camps for traumatized Syrian children and youth in both Syria and Lebanon.

In 2015, Sue initiated and co-chaired a project entitled Hearts for Hospice to meet the needs of a local hospice center in her area by providing a handmade heart for placement on the door when a resident passes. The heart alerts those passing to be respectful of family members who are mourning the death of a loved one. A family member takes the heart home. Within three years the project increased to three centers in her area and numerous donations of materials and stitched hearts were received. Word of the project spread through articles in magazines and social media posts.

Sue volunteers over 40 hours monthly by stitching and assembling hearts, coordinating gatherings and writing articles for magazines, newsletters and social media posts. Through these efforts, the project has received participation from 28 states and three countries. Satellite groups formed in cities across the United States. Many have learned to needlepoint through distribution of the promotional materials and the designs created for the hearts. Recently, Sue initiated a related project, Hearts of Compassion, providing hearts to the Kansas City Ronald McDonald House Charities for families with children in the NICU of a local hospital.

At a NYS AHPERD-Suffolk Zone meeting, the board discussed different programs they hoped to offer the community, free of cost. One member proposed a fitness competition among all schools. This was when Elizabeth Bolger started “Suffolk Zone Fit Club.” It was a way to celebrate fitness and honor her former coach (who had recently passed.) Beth wanted to focus on teamwork, cooperation and perseverance. The mission was to empower and motivate students with the tools, skills, training and confidence they need to live a lifetime of fitness, thus improving self-esteem, preventing obesity and decreasing risks of serious illnesses later in life. Beth wanted to increase leadership skills of her 4th and 5th graders. She trained students to be the referees, score keepers and coaches. Offering students leadership roles helps them hone the social and interpersonal skills necessary to be successful in life. Beth’s efforts have reached thousands of students and professionals. The competition is an annual event that started in 2017 with 12 teams and grew to 41 teams in 2020. Because of COVID, Beth pushed out a virtual Fit Club video that has been shared with PE teachers all across the U.S.

Dr. Barron believes that in order to support our society’s most valuable asset, our children, we need to support those who provide support, structure and guidance to the children in our communities. These include families, first responders, educators and health care providers. In a time of unprecedented change and rapid expansion in social, economic, education, health and technology sectors, Dr. Barron believes it is critical to arm these groups with knowledge, programmatic support, policy support and legislative changes so that they might adequately assist the children in our communities.

With her expertise working with first responders, educators, communities post-trauma, policy makers and in mental health, Dr. Barron developed a model to help achieve that goal. It is her strong belief that it will create a more balanced and safer society for our children. In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, Dr. Barron volunteered her expertise with the community of Newtown. She was subsequently hired to advise Newtown leadership. She conducted a Community Needs Assessment for the Newtown Community to help provide long term recommendations for how to support Newtown.

Vivek has been instrumental to helping young people living with disabilities. Seeing the high cost involved for families to purchase Braille books, he co-founded Braille in Paradise with his younger sister, Vidoushee to provide free Braille books via mail delivery, thus reducing the mobility of the visually impaired students and improving their education level. Likewise, Vivek has been empowering marginalized youth through life skills coaching. He voluntarily assists to provide training to hearing impaired youth and assists in finding potential job placements for them.

Through Zenfants Bondier, meaning “God’s Children,” he and his friends have been serving food to the homeless, sex workers and HIV/AIDS affected people in the streets of the capital city. Through various other initiatives, namely Ability Paradise, he ensures that youth living with disabilities are equipped with the relevant tools to be able to advance in society and lead a respectful life with dignity. Being proud of his African and Indian roots and equally being a citizen of the world, Vivek is working on the introduction of the Peace Building Youth Award in Mauritius where young people are called to work on projects focusing on peace, mutual respect and ending of racism.

Vilmarie Ocasio recently obtained her bachelor’s degree in Communications with a minor in Public Health from Coastal Carolina University. Since she was a little girl, she has been involved with her community. She worked on her Girl Scouts Silver project implementing a recycling program in her neighborhood and a Gold Award project creating awareness about Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and cancer prevention. Vilmarie is CEO and founder of a nonprofit called Community Organization of MS and Cancer, Inc (COMSC). Her inspiration sparked when her mother was diagnosed with MS in 2014. She has impacted over 250,000 people worldwide through public policy such as being an advocate for a bill until it became a law, reaching out to legislators to sponsor, introduce and draft two new bills, giving makeup tutorials for MS patients, leading MS and cancer prevention awareness campaigns, giving professional health educational talks, sending portable air conditioners to people living with MS and cancer in PR and the U.S., sending safety whistles to people living in the islands due to the earthquakes, sending custom personalized emergency cards, creating MS memory game cards, and spreading awareness about COVID-19 around the world.

At the age of 12, Victoria first began volunteering with the Triangle Area Chinese American Society when she helped serve food at a local international fair. She later joined the board and through organizing group outings and cultural events she not only deepened her appreciation for her bicultural heritage but also realized the power of volunteering in making a difference in the world. At UNC Chapel Hill, Victoria developed a passion for youth empowerment and spent every week providing free piano lessons and leading arts and craft activities. She also noticed that the Chapel Hill area had a large homeless population and became an advocate with CEF, a local nonprofit organization focused on providing services to transition people out of homelessness and poverty. As a professional, she engages in skills-based volunteering through Common Impact, a nonprofit that matches corporate employees to community organizations to collaborate on solutions to their operations challenges. She led several project teams with her marketing expertise, most recently creating a digital communications strategic plan for Essex County Family Justice Center. Victoria’s relationship with community service continues to grow and evolve and she looks forward to the role it will play in her future.

Jordan Grabelle believes that helping a child to read is as easy as A-B-C! Starting at age 7, Jordan often volunteered at literacy events in underserved communities. As an avid reader, she was alarmed seeing middle-school children select preschool books. At age 10, she was determined to create an organization centered on the root of literacy problems: preschoolers not knowing the alphabet. Jordan (17) is founder/executive director for Love Letters for Literacy (LLL), a nonprofit promoting childhood literacy in at-risk communities benefiting 40,000+ children across all 50 states, 30 countries and six continents. Jordan’s innovative solution empowers families to have fun being their children’s first reading teacher, providing them with educational literacy-based games, a personalized note, and 26 colorful alphabet flashcards. Over 6.5 years Jordan scaled LLL into a global nonprofit, inspiring 18,700+ volunteers to donate 800k service hours, with students from 480+ high schools/colleges, supporting 60+ nonprofits. COVID-19 devastated underserved children’s ability to learn to read since most preschools closed. Jordan used social media, pivoting to a virtual-volunteer format, and increased her volunteer base by 300%, impacting 400% more children.

Hunger and homelessness are issues close to ZaNia’s heart. Sadly, she knew both all too well.

ZaNia is now a 14-year-old adopted 8th grader, honor roll student and world champion dancer. One day ZaNia saw a woman and her two children asking for food in front of a grocery store. She did not understand how anyone could be hungry in front of a food store. ZaNia asked her foster mother for money to help the woman, who cried when she received it. ZaNia cried because she knew what it was like to be hungry and homeless. She had lived in shelters with her grandmother. ZaNia was adopted by her foster family but she never forgot her time at the shelter. It was a sad and scary ordeal she never wanted anyone else to experience. At age 9, ZaNia created her nonprofit “Z Feeds Angel Food Project.” Her nonprofit packs “Go-Go Bags” which are gallon bags filled with food, drinks and toiletry items. Also included are words of encouragement, offering hope that life will get better. ZaNia has distributed over 800 bags. She loves the joy her bags bring to others.

Sean became a difference maker at a young age, saving a woman beaten and left to die in her trunk. Unstoppable since, with 17+ years in the Army Reserves, his dedication shows in his two MOS, 30+ military honors (including the Combat Action Badge, Meritorious Service Medal, Bronze Star & one of MP Corps Regiment’s highest honors: the Order of the Marechaussee), and four deployments including Iraq & Afghanistan. As a 1SG for a Civil Affairs company and as founder/CEO of nonprofit The Archangels, he’s dedicated years to providing and supporting programs/projects that bring support and peace to military, veteran and first responders, including therapy clinics, community 5Ks, scholarship programs, financial aid to families of the fallen or injured, Military Dining Outs, etc., always free to participants. In over 13 years, he’s also served throughout the Mesa Police Department and sponsors/participates in numerous community outreach programs. He earned a bachelor’s in Criminal Justice & Criminology from ASU (Summa Cum Laude) and completed a master’s in Organizational Leadership. His greatest joy is being a father and husband to his wife and kids who know, through Sean’s love and devotion, they always come first.

From a young age, Radhika has been passionate about serving her community by helping the underprivileged. Seeing the prevalence of poverty in her community, she knew she had to take matters into her own hands. Thus, she founded Finances4Youth, a service organization dedicated to educating kids in low-income families about financial skills to break the cycle of poverty. Radhika’s mission was not just to teach classes, but to instill lifelong habits in children by using interactive activities. She has designed a detailed curriculum consisting of topics such as methods to avoid overspending and the importance of saving money. Initially, she taught workshops in local libraries. Since COVID-19 hit, she has pivoted her class structure by teaching the workshops virtually.

Through her efforts, Radhika continues to empower the next generation to become financially responsible individuals. Furthermore, she hopes to inspire youth to incite positive change by uplifting their communities.

As a 9-year-old, Rishika, now a sophomore, learned of the unfortunate circumstances that some individuals endure and how important it is to get people involved in helping others. This inspired her to share her blessings and make a difference in peoples’ lives while encouraging other kids to serve their community. Rishika founded Little Helpers, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization serving with a motto of inspiring kids to radiate kindness and help out!

Over the 60+ service projects, Little Helpers has raised over $16,000, donated more than 4,500 new toys to the Cincinnati Children’s hospital, organized COVID relief projects and generated tens of thousands of smiles. Little Helpers has a Youth Advisory Board on which Rishika leads 15 members who proffer fresh ideas while learning leadership through kindness. Under her guidance members have led multiple charity drives & donated 2000+ pounds of food to local food pantries. Rishika recently started a podcast called Little Helpers Big Inspirations in which she interviews kid changemakers and strives to inspire listeners to make a difference in their community! Rishika emphasizes that you don’t need to have a story to make a change.

Shivam is the founder and president of the Wizards of Wall Street organization. This organization works to promote financial literacy among teens through interactive teaching of personal finance and investment. His passion for community service has motivated him to inspire teens nationwide to become financially literate. After noticing that most school curriculums leave out crucial information on personal finance, Shivam has taken action to make teens prepared to manage their finances wisely in the future. He has created a curriculum optimized for teens, which introduces them to important strategies in investment. He hopes to make high schoolers educated in smart financial investments to take control of their financial lives. Currently, his curriculum has been adopted by many high schools nationwide and has made over 100 teens ready for their financial future. Beyond his curriculum, Shivam hosts multiple interactive events throughout the year to actively engage teens, especially those from underprivileged backgrounds. He works to foster both a learning and a socializing environment as a part of the organization’s goals. Through Wizards of Wall Street, Shivam shows his dedication to promoting financial literacy among teens.

Throughout Aravind’s youth, his personal motto has guided his love for and commitment to community service. Being an aspiring physician-scientist with a motivation to solve intractable problems to improve patients’ lives, he volunteers as an EMT in the East Millstone First Aid Squad. He and his fellow EMTs routinely respond to medical, trauma and psychological cases, serving the medical emergencies of community members. While he initially joined the squad due to his budding medical interest, interacting with patients and serving people in critical condition has taught him more than any textbook could have. His experiences, from comforting patients to treating those who refused hospital visits for fear of the costs, have strengthened his desire to pursue medicine and increase the effectiveness and equity of healthcare. He has translated this same spirit of service into leading a community-wide mental health awareness campaign, creating science research mentorship programs for elementary through high school students, expanding neuroscience education and preventing environmental damage through bioengineering research. As he continues moving to new frontiers, his ultimate joy is his commitment to serving society.

Many kids are interested in the behind-the-scenes of technology, including Ori’s brother. He loves robots and wanted to learn a programming language so he could bring his robot ideas to life. Unfortunately, there were no computer science classes at his school and limited classes outside of it. Ori was determined to provide everyone in her community with a free and accessible opportunity to learn to code. She discovered Teach-Technology Organization and connected with their program that focuses on teaching students how to code through libraries and virtual instruction.

Ori became the instructor for the Python course, but she also wanted to give students an opportunity to learn another important coding language: Java. She started by creating presentations and supplemental materials for the course. She then hosted meetings for students to join each week where they received direct instruction followed by practice exercises and homework. She also used an online IDE to serve as a virtual classroom and provide a hands-on experience by allowing students to run the code on their own devices. Ori is now the manager of the Java learning program, which continues to grow with its expanding number of projects, classes, volunteers and students.

In 2020, after speaking with teachers at Dallas ISD Title 1 schools, Prisha was shocked to hear that many DISD students had completely lost contact with their teachers and lacked access to school supplies and books. Devastated by this reality, she wanted to spread a message of hope to underserved students and teachers in Dallas that would encourage them to stay learning, inspired and passionate. With this idea in mind, she worked with a friend to develop Project Kind Packs, an initiative to provide packages, AKA “Kind Packs,” filled with school supplies, storybooks, hygienic supplies and letters of encouragement for students and teachers at Title 1 elementary schools in her community.

In two months, her project received support from hundreds of donors across the country, raised over $3,600, and received the help of over 100 student volunteers. With the funds raised, Project Kind Packs donated packs to nearly 300 K-5 students at 11 Title 1 schools. Her story was featured on various local news outlets and recognized by Rep Van Taylor, who dubbed her a “Hometown Hero.” Prisha is thrilled to continue her project this fall and share her passion for learning and storytelling with more students across DISD.

Saanvi aspires to serve her community through various means to provide resources to today’s youth to build a foundation of service individuals can take into their future. Previously serving as outreach director at The Leaders Readers Network, a nonprofit organization, Saanvi has set a foundation for the organization’s growth. Within LRN she has led the Pay It Forward Project, rallying 600+ volunteers, giving 3,000+ service hours and donating 3,000+ books to multiple Title 1 Schools. Saanvi has also worked to create the Student Leadership Conference in which students nation-wide participated in free seminars dedicated to teaching hard and soft skills. LRN has allowed her to be awarded grants from YSA, host steady book drives and solidify a consistent network in her community all to perform service at a large level. She is excited to continue taking this organization to new heights through her new role as co-president. Outside of LRN, Saanvi participates in numerous clubs and organizations centered around leadership: co-president of her school’s medical club, VP of Beta Club, state secretary of Clemson’s 4-H, local chapter coordinator of HSDA, finance director of SCHSD, and chapter lead of Greenville GR.

Joshika founded a charity called Jewels for Joy to give back to her community while encompassing her passion! As a 7-year-old, Joshika knew two things: she wanted to make a difference in her community and she wanted to become a fashion designer when she grew up. So she put these two together to found her own charity! Joshika handmakes and sells jewelry, like earrings and bracelets, and donates thousands of dollars and toys, plus spreads smiles all around. She uses all profits from her jewelry to help out the community! Throughout her journey, she has made more than 400 jewels, donated over 1,000 brand new toys to the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and supported several local charitable causes. Currently, she has been donating her jewels to nurses and doctors as a token of appreciation for their work and bravery during this pandemic and is raising money for COVID-19 relief projects. She has donated more than 100 pairs of earrings and bracelets with a kind note to three different hospitals in Ohio so far! This 8 year old has a big heart!

In 2018, 14-year-old Adie Selassie visited the Texas-Mexico border on a school mission to learn about Texan colonias — a group of housing settlements along the US-Mexico border. Adie learned that the colonias are some of the most impoverished parts of the US whose residents have very limited opportunities to improve their condition and exit their circumstances. Confounded by the extent of the poverty, she researched and surfaced the colonia residents’ most urgent predicament: lack of access to electricity.

Inspired by this experience, Adie founded Live in the Lights. Core to the mission of this organization is what Adie calls their Double Sustainability Mandate, which addresses the challenges of the colonias both through the use of clean solar energy, and through the creation of a small-business ecosystem designed to sustain intra-colonia commercial activity. Today, Live In The Lights has provided solar-powered electricity to over 260 residents in 30 households — the first ever foray into solar energy in the colonias. This endeavor has dramatically improved livelihoods, helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions and spread education on the economic and environmental benefits of harnessing solar energy.

Ray has spent the past 8 years participating in a prison program called Kairos Prison Ministry, in a maximum security prison. Every 3rd Saturday of each month, they spend the day with over 300 prisoners to shine a little light of humanity to the incarcerated men. Twice a year, Kairos introduces 42 new inmates into their program during a 4-day process. Each team member also writes 42 encouraging letters for each of the inmates. All team members help to hand bake 1,200 dozens of cookies for the inmates to eat during that weekend. During those four days, they receive home cooked meals throughout.

Ray has also spent about 15 years helping the homeless in his city. He’s opened his home to them to live with his family, washes their clothes, lets them take showers and has helped them get their IDs and social security cards. One of his friends got into a program that helped him off the streets and into an apartment. He’s on disability, so Ray has been his payee, managing his finances by paying his rent, storage and phone bills.

Linda loves serving with KEEP US FED in Conroe, Texas. In 2020, they saved over 1.1 million pounds of food, enough for over 920,000 meals, with the help of 60 volunteers and 30 recipient partner organizations, keeping all that food from the trash! Linda wanted to find a place to volunteer where she could care for the poor and needy. Recipient groups range from the local women’s shelter to church food pantries to halfway houses to grandparents taking care of grandchildren and groups helping foster kids who aged out of the system but still need a place to live with guidance on become a working adult.

Linda says there is nothing better than picking up 400 to 900 lbs a day of “excess food” from grocery stores or restaurants, packing it into 20 to 30-lb boxes and driving it to the day’s recipient group. She is greeted with nothing but smiles and thank yous upon arrival as the food is unloaded from the van. She says, “Who needs a gym when you get all this daily lifting and moving exercise?” She loves her volunteer job as it brings hope to her community!

As a Medical Reserve Corps volunteer supporting Houston area COVID-19 response, Mary dedicated over 2,000 hours to Harris County Public Health as a testing and vaccination team member at the county’s large outdoor sites. Additionally, she assisted with conducting voluntary community-based COVID antibody testing. Continually inspired by the compassion shown to the patients by her teammates, and the endless gratitude shown by the community, Mary served for 1 year, by which time, the public health response had been such a success that mass testing and vaccination sites were no longer needed.

Enrique Hernandez Salcido is a former Dreamer Scholar with the I Have A Dream Foundation, which was a large part of his success in his education. Even up to this day he knows he can rely on the foundation for any support. After graduating from high school he spent his time giving back to this foundation that supported him throughout high school by tutoring current Dreamer Scholars. As a Dreamer Scholar volunteer/tutor he created a strong relationship with a student, gave them high school advice, answered their college questions, and helped them with their day-to-day schoolwork. He hopes to continue working with Dreamer Scholar students because he believes in the I Have A Dream Foundation’s values, that students from all types of backgrounds deserve the opportunity to reach secondary education. He credits a lot of his success to the I Have A Dream Foundation and is grateful for the opportunity to be giving back to them.

Prior to the pandemic, AmeriCorps’ “Volunteering in America” report stated that more than 77 million Americans volunteered regularly. 1.8 million nonprofit organizations providing volunteer opportunities had to drastically limit in-person help received, despite the need for the work of these organizations significantly increasing. One organization is making sure that charities can run through virtual opportunities to connect with volunteers. Shazia Peeran, the founder of Giving Digitized, shares the app’s mission dedicated to charity and volunteering and how you can get involved. Giving Digitized is a digital platform that was created to make socially distanced giving easier for charities amid the pandemic. “Charities and nonprofits use it to request the exact needs to serve the community,” shared Shazia. Shazia used this national desire to give back to bring Giving Digitized to multiple states. By changing the way donors can give, it virtually powers giving back, alongside hundreds of volunteers using Giving Digitized across the United States.

Kim’s grassroots style of advocacy for 25+ years has focused on the disenfranchised of the community. Her initial work began with formerly incarcerated individuals trying to reenter into the mainstream of society. Often, Kim was the only woman at the “table.” She was involved with the then US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana (Susan Brooks’ office) as part of “Lever Pulling” meetings in the courts with other police/service agencies working with violent offenders. Kim’s work has helped survivors of Hurricane Katrina relocate, the homeless, domestic violence, youth and senior populations. Kim founded H.O.P.E. (Helping Others Prosper Economically) TEAM – a citywide collaboration that unites agencies and efforts to work together that offer free, low cost and/or affordable services to these populations. They’ve done summits, workshops, job fairs and others all free to participate for the community to grow and learn, work together on topics of mental health, jobs for the hard to hire and some engagement with some high profile cases such as the Aaron Bailey shooting in our city and working with Paula Cooper, the first juvenile that was sentenced in the history of the U.S. to murder.

Michelle Puzzo graduated from the UConn in 1998 with a bachelor’s degree in physical therapy. She observed that many of her patients needed help beyond her physical therapy license and realized that many neighbors would be willing to help but did not know how to connect. In 2019 Michelle co-founded UR Community Cares (UCC) to virtually link neighbors within a 15-mile radius to support each other. She recognized the gap in resources for the growing population of people with mobility issues and the need for each town to be able to improve community connections. Those who need help can connect online to receive help from volunteers at no charge.

UCC has grown due to Michelle’s dedication to helping others. She is the nonprofit’s president and, along with a small board of directors, group of advisors and pro bono professionals, the site has expanded to having over 500 enrolled participants in less than two years. UCC has participants in over 100 towns in Connecticut and Massachusetts, is funded in the municipal budgets of Manchester/Bolton, CT and has received grants and corporate/private donations. Michelle is passionate helping people live safely at home as they age in place.

When Sydney’s high school shifted to virtual learning in March, she began writing poetry for her English class. Her poems focused on how the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine were affecting her friends and family. The creative outlet allowed her to put her thoughts, feelings and emotions into words. The feedback was so good that she decided to publish a poetry book.

Sydney donated her first royalty check to Memorial Hermann Southeast to recognize healthcare workers for their hard work and dedication during the crisis. Her donation helped purchase additional personal protective equipment for nurses and staff working in the hospital’s intensive care unit and emergency room. Sydney truly hopes to inspire young individuals to be passionate about something and to chase after their goals. She found herself extremely lucky to be able to become an author, and wants to encourage the youth to give back to the community in whatever way they can, especially in times of crisis.

Paula believes that, “Nothing that you ever do for children is wasted.” Whether serving on boards that advocate for children and families or founding a nonprofit because a gap needed to be filled, she is always concerned about the children. In 2002, Paula realized that females were mirroring the delinquency rates of their male counterparts. This created the framework for the Capital City Youth Development Corporation and All About Girls. Soliciting the support of community women, more than 900 girls are now AAG alumni. She continues to serve as a trainer, mentor and success coach.

In 2006, Paula joined Volunteer Florida, where she continued empowering families across the state. She challenged herself to grow and cultivate new leaders and single-handedly created two unique programs: the Leader Guides and the first ever LeaderCorps Initiative launched in Florida. She taps into the very best of each individual and challenges them to be the catalyst to change their communities. Paula has selflessly devoted thousands of hours advocating and amplifying the voices of youth. Because of her vision, exceptional generosity and ability to inspire others, she is affectionately regarded across the state as a “grower of greatness!”

Finding meaning through volunteerism has been a 36-year journey for Mark Grantham. He began this journey early in life working with local stakeholders. Mr. Grantham, Executive Director for Auburn-Opelika Habitat for Humanity, has served others with purpose and consistency. His giving heart illuminates the way for others to also discover their purpose in serving. As a devoted resident, Mark actively volunteers over 1,000 collective hours with First Baptist Church, Keep Opelika Beautiful and Harvest Evangelism, United Way, Lee County Gideons, and Alabama Rural Ministries. From collaborating with city officials and civic organizations to soliciting volunteers who assist in the rebuilding efforts for local tornado victims, Mark works tirelessly to serve the most vulnerable who deserve a “hand up” in securing the opportunity to own affordable homes.

His unique ability to energize people truly embodies the type of servant-leader that every community desires. Mark’s devotion provides invaluable volunteer and mentorship opportunities for students at the local high school and university. His effort to encourage community members to invest in building homes and lend assistance will provide a lasting impact for future generations.

Gary was born with cerebral palsy and is in a wheelchair. The doctors said he would never function. He graduated elementary school with the Presidential Award for Outstanding Academic Excellence, made the honor roll almost every year in high school and was inducted into the Phi Theta Kappa Hall of Honor. He began The Gary J. Lynn Foundation, a 501c3 nonprofit in 2008 and donated $15,000 for cerebral palsy research and $45,000 to TIRR Memorial Hermann’s robotics floor to help immobile people become mobile. President George HW Bush chose to tell Gary’s story at the 2009 MLB All Star Game in St. Louis for All Stars Among Us. He was in a film with the five living U.S. Presidents at that time and the film was shown for years in the Presidential Libraries. He advocates for United Spinal and Adapt National for Disability Rights. He was the only person to win the Mayor’s Disability Advocate of the Year Award twice. In 2019 he won the Humanitarian of the Year Award. He is a Red Rowdy with the Houston Rockets and chosen as the Rockets Super Fan. He also was presented with the Community Empowerment Award by his Congressional person.

M is a volunteer student of Bandarban Hill Tracts. In addition to studies, he conducts awareness programs by organizing program seminars in the area. Climate and environment as well as education and health programs are programmed. M cleans the three local markets on his own initiative. He donates blood, provides services to people in need and provides tree planting services. He proposed to the Government of Bangladesh to implement “Environment Friendly Plant Project” to protect the climate and environment. M requested for the implementation of his project in the country to protect the climate and environment and for the presentation of the United Nations.

Sammie helps others get buddy benches that are made out of recycled plastic caps and lids. This helps the environment and friendships. She has been able to help over 150 groups all over the country get buddy benches for their schools and parks. Sammie loves talking to kids about how they can make a difference no matter their age! She started Sammie’s Buddy Bench project when she was 8 and noticed lonely kids on the playground. She has been able to partner with Walgreens and UPS to help spread her kindness mission. Sammie believes that together we can make a bigger impact.

She also does a weekly podcast called Sammie Smiles to lift people’s spirits. Everyone needs friends and everyone needs smiles! You don’t just have to be an adult to make a difference… you can be a kid and make a difference too!

Amnah Umair is a young philanthropist and an educator to the Street Children in Lahore since 2013; she is the founder of her Street to Schools initiative which is providing education to more than 100 orphans and underprivileged children. Her ultimate focus is on helping those children who are in need of proper education. These children are, in fact, the future of our nation and they should be provided with education, thus enabling them to bloom individually and contribute towards the advancement of society.

Her belief is simple – everyone deserves an opportunity to pursue their dreams and at her school she is fighting battles for children who deserve education, who deserve to go to school. Amnah is a ray of hope for those who have stopped smiling. It makes Amnah extremely upset when she witnesses poverty in Pakistan. There are children living amidst trash tips and rubbish dumps; these are the poorest of poor, living in the worst places possible. She accepts with her entire heart that the way to reestablish a city is found if we value broken individuals. The poorest of the poor will come into the structure of the city and change it if provided with an education.

Verda Rose Annan was born in the United Kingdom and moved to her home country of Ghana when she was just a year old. There, she learned to appreciate the little things in life and established a love for learning. When Verda was eight years old, she and her family moved to the United States with the hope of having more opportunities and making a better life. In the diverse city of Fitchburg, Verda grew into a young woman with a passion for helping others and a dream of becoming a humanitarian doctor. Learning wasn’t always easy for her, but she studied diligently and worked enthusiastically, inspired by her hard working family. In her senior year, she was accepted into Harvard University. At her high school graduation, she was awarded the General Excellence Scholarship by Fitchburg High School, a $40,000 Scholarship, but she publicly asked that the school give that scholarship to someone who needed it more. Verda was able to make this bold decision because her faith has taught her to be a blessing to others, regardless of how much you have. She is glad that she had the opportunity to help others and hopes everyone who hears this story will be inspired to do something kind for someone else, however small the act.

Reviv began after founder Maria and her husband welcomed their daughter, Vivian, into the world on July 24, 2012. A short 59 days later they held Vivian for the last time. Throughout Vivian’s diagnosis and hospitalization, the Dunlaps received endless support from family and friends. As a result they were able to be fully present for Viv, loving her for a lifetime in those 59 days. They quickly realized that their presence was the exception. It wasnt that other parents didn’t want to be next to their child, but the demands life required of them outside the hospital just didn’t stop. They left the hospital devastated that their arms were empty, but Maria’s heart was full of the need to do something. To fulfill that need, Reviv started to meet families as close to their child’s diagnosis as possible and work with them and the child’s care team to give personalized practical and emotional care for families in order to walk beside them when their child is diagnosed with a life-limiting or life-altering illness. Reviv focuses care in four key levels of support: Family and Sibling, Hospital, Home and Bereavement. Over 6,000 families have been supported in emotional and practical ways since Reviv’s inception in 2014.

Doc Golden, a 77-year-old, 100% disabled Vietnam veteran served 10 years in the US Navy. He has received PVSA’s for more than 33,000 hours of service as a Chaplain for fire (13 yrs), police (27 years), and veteran organizations (11+ years and still serving). He was CEO of a NFP organization that raised over $100,000 to purchase Thermal Imaging Devices. He has given more than $10,000 in scholarships for youth. He works with a local hospice to bring recognition to veterans in their final days, does memorial services and has honored more than 3,000 veterans in his Heroes At Home program. He is active in providing Veterans Day and Memorial Day events through VVA-317. He has been named Citizen Of The Year, and received a number of civic awards from the City of Blue Springs and the State of Missouri.

While serving with Inter City Fire Protection District, Doc built a Wall Of Honor and helped remodel the boardroom. He also sponsored Christmas and built a Letter To Santa Mail box, used at the fire station for children to mail their letters. He builds and repairs furniture and other items for a local early child development program and served on their advisory board for 15+ years. He grants scholarships to the Adult Education Program.

Collette is a teacher at Anne Frank Elementary. She loves her profession and continues to learn and incorporate her learning and love for yoga in her daily teaching. Collette became connected with The Ahmad Butler Foundation because she knew Ahmad as he attended Anne Frank in kindergarten. She followed his battle with cancer and learned about ABF, then knew that she wanted to become involved! She contacted the executive director, Ahmad’s grandmother, Latanya Miller to learn more about ABF. After speaking with Latanya, she knew this was where she wanted to be! Latanya and family work tirelessly to support children diagnosed with cancer as well as their families. She had already done such great things and had so many wonderful ideas planned for the future. Collette became a part of that future and joined their team. It has been a year since she first joined and she’s loved every minute of it! She has been involved in fundraising, creating care packages, a parade at St. Christopher’s Hospital and the latest event, Pooday! She loved seeing the children just being kids, laughing and smiling as they watched the silliness and played games. She will forever be connected with ABF as it is a part of who she is now.

Growing up in the rural community of Agortime Kpetoe, Sylvester experienced the devastation of poverty. When he was 12 years old, two things happened to him that drove his passion for serving humanity: the death of his family ‘’sister’’ who got malaria and the neglect and abuse by his father when he was in grade 6. Since then, he engaged in hard labor, and with support from his mother and siblings, Sylvester was able to go through school.

At age 12, Sylvester engaged his peers to teach troubling subjects and sensitized his community about preventive health care. This led to creating his nonprofit, VARAS, at the age of 18, intending to bridge the rural development gap. His service work mainly occurs in rural communities because he believes today’s societal problems in developing countries originate from rural areas due to a lack of pastoral support.

Through community engagement and volunteerism, his organization builds schools and libraries, provides potable water and health care materials and empowers women who suffer some forms of abuse through apprenticeship. When COVID-19 struck, Sylvester, through VARAS, provided PPE and 1000+ masks to community schools.

Maxwell is co-founder of Catching Joy, Inc., a nonprofit that promotes youth volunteerism and acts of kindness. He’s turned his 2020 marathon into an ultra-marathon: 100 acts of kindness to make a difference during COVID-19. At the start of the year, Maxwell partnered with the Biden Inaugural Committee to lead on Martin Luther King Jr. National Day of Service. He launched “Operation Sock Drop” and set out to collect 2021 socks. He surpassed his goal, collecting over 7000 socks in just a couple weeks. As students returned to school in-person, Maxwell organized a successful back-to school clothing and PJ drive, in which he rallied people to give from their abundance to aid kids living in poverty and crisis. Maxwell demonstrated empathy for the elderly, as he distributed masks and heart cards with positive messages to area nursing homes. Most recently, Maxwell received the president’s “Call to Action” lifetime achievement award for over 4,000 hours of extraordinary service.

Md.Rahmat has set up voluntary social organizations to improve the living standards of his communities. He has been working for his community as a volunteer for over four years, actively working on child marriage prevention, drug eradication, a quality education system and clean water and sanitation. He is helping efforts for the construction and reconstruction of dams for the people of the riverside, which has made the lives of the people of six villages easier. He is also helping efforts to create free tuition opportunities for poor students and organizing annual sports competitions. Md.Rahmat is working on seriously pursuing every bit of work on climate change. He is committed to helping to overcome all obstacles in the community as per the necessary steps. The main objective of the organization he works with is to improve the living standards of the people in the community. He is also volunteering with various international organizations so that he can use the knowledge gained from participating in the activities for the benefit of the community.

Dr. Mayank Amin is an entrepreneur and local business owner who, with a community of 1,000 volunteers by his side, was able to vaccinate over 45,000 community members in one of the country’s largest community-run efforts. In 2018, Dr. Amin embarked on a new journey to advocate and protect the profession of pharmacy and patient care with the re-opening of a long-standing local pharmacy, Skippack Pharmacy, that was shuttered up by a large chain. Thanks to decades of involvement with a nonprofit organization, BAPS Charities, as both a youth leader and medical volunteer, Dr. Amin’s spirit of service and focus on leading a respectable life that ultimately improves the lives of those around him has become his foundational tenets. Throughout the pandemic, Dr. Amin had one goal in mind while his wife prepared for their newborn: “I want to vaccinate as much of my community prior to the arrival of my son.” And he did just that helping to bring vaccination rates in his local community to over 92% just before his son arrived in late May. While he made national headlines in his Superman cape while vaccinating his community, he reminds himself that the “S” on the costume stands for Servant and continues to serve and inspire those around him.

Quintin Pastrana is the founder and managing director of the Library Renewal Partnership (LRP), a coalition of volunteers, literacy advocates, librarians, publishers and enterprises that has been building community libraries across the Philippines, and now throughout Asia, since 2010. Through its volunteer and public-private partnership model, LRP has helped build over 1000 libraries in rural communities and at-risk urban centers in the Philippines, and has expanded its outreach to communities in Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Laos and Thailand. As a coalition of partners, LRP is driven by the volunteer spirit, a mutli-sectoral approach, and an innovative supply chain that enables them to help build community third spaces — in schools, hospitals, farms, prisons, sports facilities and even mobile libraries as a catalyst to advance literacy, empower citizens, lower criminality and improve livelihood in areas where they are needed most. LRP has been recognized as Library Journal’s Movers and Shakers, Judith’s Reading Room’s Freedom through Literacy Award, and the Asia Society’s social impact awards.

The Children’s Book Project finds new homes for gently used books with children that have very few books of their own. It seeks to help every child to feel part of a wider reading community, to be inspired by and to find themselves in the books they read and to gain emotionally from the escapism and inspiration that books offer. In three years the charity has gifted over 500k beautiful books to children across the UK, supporting the most disadvantaged families, placing books into bedrooms and addressing the country-wide “book gap.”

At the heart of its ethos is a focus on empowering children to choose books they feel excited about and want to read. The charity works with practitioners to put on impactful and engaging book gifting events that are held in 300+ settings each year. Liberty set up the Children’s Book Project on seeing the pleasure book-buying families gained from re-homing their children’s books and the talent and time that staff in recipient schools give to putting on the most compelling book gifting events. On all sides of this project motivated volunteers give their time, creativity and energy to make books accessible to all. The result? A hugely empowering and dynamic model that is growing each year.

Drawing from role models of her faith & seeing her mother dedicate her life in service to others in Pakistan and Canada, volunteering with the refugee families became a second nature to Tehmina. These families come legally to the USA with a few suitcases. With no friends or family, they can barely speak the language. The single moms carry responsibilities of the children, at times shouldering care for elderly parents. Is rent payable? How to take a sick child to the doctor? Who will rescue kids from getting bullied at school? A budget for buying clothes, shoes and household goods? Job security with baby sitting issues and transportation challenges?
Volunteering with the Refugee Services at IMGH has allowed Tehmina to do all this for over a decade.The family stability and growth is her reward. As one example, she helped successfully fundraise for a single mom with 4 children from Slovakia, enabling a car, furnished apartment with rent coverage and clothing and school items. Today 2 of them have graduated pursuing careers, and the mom speaks good English and has a stable job.

Akarsh Shroff is being honored for inspiring 500+ student volunteers in India with no prior volunteering experience to work for a social cause. As a Forbes Teenpreneur, an Ashoka Young Changemaker and a Diana Award recipient, he believes in the power of youth-led interventions to create sustainable social change.

Akarsh founded his nonprofit, S.P.A.R.K., as a 17-year-old in May 2018. The organization focuses on healthcare and child welfare. Over the last 3 years, it has coordinated 16,000+ hours of volunteering for its 4 education projects at 11 different centers benefiting 5000+ underserved children. They have worked closely with the Gram Panchayat (local self-government in rural India) at community centers to make digital education accessible to rural children.

S.P.A.R.K. has raised 4,000,000+ rupees with the support of 1500+ donors for its COVID relief efforts to provide Medical equipment like oxygen concentrators, oximeters, oxygen masks and other essentials. This has impacted 11,000+ people in 8 districts across 3 states of India. Akarsh believes that every youngster has the potential to become a changemaker. He believes youngsters can create a “bigger, better, and brighter future” for the underprivileged.

Five years ago, Jane Shutt and two of her friends realized that there were no organizations working on behalf of those struggling with poverty and homelessness in their community. They formed a nonprofit called Pineville Neighbors Place and began offering services with financial assistance, furniture and food. Jane quit her job and now works full-time at PNP as the Executive Director as a volunteer. The nonprofit has grown from a tiny operation in her home to serving almost 3,000 people last year. In addition to the foundational services, PNP also sponsors Shop With a Cop to help children at the holidays, mobile food pantries at a local elementary school, an annual Potato Drop that distributes 40,000 pounds of potatoes to the community and more. This year Jane and her team have taken the lead in the community to provide vaccine clinics to underserved people. Jane’s call is to love her neighbor in every way she can.

Lily Middleton is an AmeriCorps VISTA Volunteer with the Arizona Food Bank Network. She is very passionate about ending hunger in Arizona. Lily’s ability to connect with individuals has made her very successful in bringing Arizona Food Bank Network’s services to their partners. Throughout her service as the Agency Training Coordinator, Lily has created, organized and facilitated training content for over 1,000 food pantries across Arizona. These trainings range from volunteer development to sustainable fundraising. Her goal is to support and assist food pantries in their sustainability efforts so that they can distribute food to communities who are in need. Lily also works hand-in-hand with four rural food pantries with bi-weekly virtual check-ins and periodic onsite visits to provide them resources.

Like other organizations, St. Mary’s met an explosion of newly food insecure peoples driven by the impacts of COVID-19. Across Arizona, areas with minimal, stalling, or declining food insecurity saw demand at a scale no one was prepared to handle. With the aid of federal, state and private organizations, as well as individuals, St. Mary’s delivered nearly 30 million lbs of food from March thru May of 2020, and hosts around 70 mobile distributions a month. Daniel Bissonnette, an AmeriCorps VISTA Volunteer, has focused on the modernization of St. Mary Food Bank’s technology, and outreach in Native American Nations. In the Data Intelligence department, he helped explore new platforms to streamline information between St. Mary’s and its partner agencies and clients, as well as to simplify the logistics of sending food. Additionally, in largely rural areas with dispersed, high demand, Daniel marketed these opportunities over the web. To date, he has helped publicize more than 900 food distributions. He is grateful to work alongside the most passionate and experienced people. Mindful of St. Mary’s primary mission to get food to neighbors in need, he continues to lay the groundwork for new infrastructure, hoping it will serve this greater purpose.

Tara is coordinating a cooking with the elderly activity for Samen voor Eindhoven, a Dutch volunteering organization that organizes activities for companies in the area. After joining the cooking activity herself she got so enthusiastic she wanted to do more and started coordinating. “It is a wonderful initiative that brings business and healthcare closer. I believe it is valuable to put some perspective to our day to day business challenges with a reality check and admiration for the people that take care of us when we are no longer able to do that ourselves. And above all, it is an activity filled with fun and laughter.” Cooking with the elderly is done in healthcare homes with people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. A box full of groceries and recipes are delivered and volunteers and residents prepare meals together. After preparation, the meal is consumed together like one big family — an activity many have missed.

Advik is a 19-year-old who co-founded Chhalaang Foundation, a New Delhi-based nonprofit that aims to uplift under-resourced victims of the pandemic. The nonprofit started with a project to empower women from marginalized communities through vocational training in stitching various products like bags, masks, etc., which the nonprofit then helped them sell.

In April 2021, when the second wave of COVID-19 struck India, Advik and his team planned out food distribution drives. During the lockdown in Delhi, the Chhalaang Foundation team organized fundraisers and went on-ground to distribute cooked meals and dry ration to COVID victims, their families and health care workers. After crossing the distribution of a few thousand meals, they were contacted by several organizations and individuals who wanted to collaborate and donate, respectively. Hence, the nonprofit expanded its operations to help out transgender women, potter colonies, poverty-stricken families of school-going children and other minority communities. Over a period of just two months, Advik and his team distributed 200,000 meals, worth over 1.7 million+ Rupees and impacted the lives of over 8,000 people at a time when they most needed it.

Inspired by the many who lifted up others during the pandemic and civil unrest in 2020, Casey Francis decided that she too would serve her community. Taking what she calls “a professional gap year,” Casey paused her career in order to join the AmeriCorps VISTA program. In service to older adults facing food insecurity throughout the state of Arizona, Casey’s mission it two-fold: to raise awareness of the SNAP program which is underutilized by older Americans and to work for the expansion of the ‘A’ in the CACFP (Child and Adult Care Food Program) hot meals program.

Understanding that rare privilege allows her to leave full time work in order to serve in this capacity, Casey encourages others to “give until you feel uncomfortable” whether that be time or money.

Mudit pathak aka ARTISTIC_YOGI, an alumni of Little Angels school and grandson of Gunanand Pathak, always had an enterpreneural mindset to bring the change in the world by being the change. He established PLAN_IT_4U, an event management venture to provide part time jobs and internships to all college-going youths so that they can get in touch with corporate world. The organization has impacted around 1000+ youths.
He established ARTISTIC_BYNATURE to provide support, appreciation, motivation and a platform for artists across the country and it has impacted around 10,000+ artists. Mudit has helped to organize 1000+ events nationally and internationally.
He established THEYOGI_GANG to introduce practicality in the education system by providing seminars, sessions and workshops in different schools and colleges. THEYOGI_GANG even acted as launchpad for 10+ organizations to help them start their own organizations. In the lockdown he established BHARAT_GIRLUP, with the help of Pranjul Tyagi, for women’s empowerment and equality.

Driven by an entrepreneurial spirit, Shrey wishes to transform the paradigm of the education system by including vocational and skill development in curriculums through regulatory and researched practices. He was motivated by the National Educational Policy India 2020. Having won prestigious awards and chaired at the international level in Model UN and public speaking conferences, he wishes to strengthen his knowledge and creativity in building systems that would institute sustainable change.

As the founder of Akansha, his long-term mission is to improve skill development and promote social entrepreneurial learning through nonprofit counseling and launching student-led initiatives in sister cities and countries. Over the years, he’s helped 10+ organizations, 10,000+ students, and are in 10+ cities worldwide! He has received government recognition for its work, including the Young Achievers Award by the Indian Achievers Forum.

William R. (Ronny) Jorgensen has been utilizing and sharing his talent for 47 straight years (since 1974), creating a wooden replica of the iconic Liberty Bell which serves as the winning coaches trophy in the annual Liberty Bowl college football game (now the AutoZone Liberty Bowl). The Liberty Bowl is one of the longest-running college football bowl games in history. A self-taught, skilled woodworker, he wanted to contribute something to this annual civic event to help add value to the bowl game and the experience for the participating teams. As such, he volunteers his time and talent to create the coaches trophy, made of walnut and awarded to the winning coach. It takes him between 14 – 20 hours to create each trophy, which he does over a number of days each year. For his service, he was honored with the Spirit of 1776 Award in 2002. The award is presented to an individual who embodies the patriotic spirit of the Liberty Bowl and serves their community in an exemplary manner.

Anoushka is synonymous with resilience, and people can count on her for always standing up for what is right. One of her striking qualities is the ability to have empathy and passion towards others. Anoushka started volunteering at the age of 10 and taught kids from slums in evenings, used her talent to record two music albums, did charity concerts and donated all the profits towards education for underserved at Ek Pahel NGO. She was the flagbearer at charity marathons where she raised awareness for girls’ education and became the youngest radio host, advocating for children’s rights through radio-storytelling. Anoushka used her skills in radio to create the first telecom based learning system to help children in rural areas.

She also started her own organization, Roshan Bharat, where she impacted over 2500+ people during the pandemic and collectively 5000 over the years. She created ‘happiness drives’ so underserved children get access to quality educational resources, developed an e-learning platform, “Scholarback,” which gives them personalised classes, and also started the first STEM organisation in her community, Girllytical, which mentors girls to become empowered in STEM.

Manasi Patil is a 15 year old Gen-Z changemaker, who believes that “to create a change, she should be the change.” She’s the author of two books that provide insight on society, is a columnist at a reputed and leading newspaper in India, and works with global organizations that follow a similar mindset of growth and youth empowerment. As a public speaker, she speaks at events as a panelist and keynote speaker, conducts workshops in schools/organizations and is gearing up for her first TEDx event taking place in late 2021. Manasi is also an avid STEM researcher, and an advocate for girlsinSTEM and the SDGs. Presently, she is diligently working on her startup, which she hopes will be another widespread means through which she can address Gen-Z. She loves collaborating with changemakers and organizations that impact a change.

Johnny Lee Clarke is a Lifetime Volunteer Award winner who continues to innovate on behalf of Santa Clara County, California, restoring hope to broken families separated through incarceration. Johnny brings together 17 -20 trainers and volunteers into proximity with the incarceration crisis in the U.S. and Bay Area to provide and document a complete, step-by-step, proven, culturally-sensitive technical training system called CityLab Professional.

They are funded through the Employment Training Panel and registered in California as both an OJT and Apprenticeship program. Their vision fosters triple bottom line solutions supporting entrepreneurs, their organizations and the industries in which they operate.

After more than 20 years as a school social worker and a volunteer for the Zaban Paradies Couples Shelter, Janet felt that her knowledge and skills should continue to be used in retirement. She now volunteers with two organizations that not only helped her clients when she worked, but are integral to the Atlanta community and especially working people in poverty. As a volunteer for The Atlanta Assistance League, Janet works in their thrift shop, which supports various philanthropic projects such as providing school uniforms for children in three metro school systems, as well as Shepherd Spinal Hospital, books for kids and much more.

Her real passion is as a volunteer and board member of Midtown Assistance Center. MAC helps to prevent working people from becoming homeless. While interviewing clients who come to MAC for rent and utility help, and enough groceries to tide them over, Janet listened to find out other ways to help these families and individuals. Even though COVID-19 took its toll of no more face-to-face interviews, Janet continued to help MAC in other ways. She is anxious to get back to working with clients on a more personal level, when we can be safe.

Makeba launched The International Girls Academy in honor of her friends who took their life due to sucide. Makeba wanted to create a platform for girls regardless of their socio-economic status, background, zipcode, etc. The organization focuses on helping to create a safe space by providing girls resources, programing and support in the areas of STEM, media and financial literacy. Their mission is to unite, uplift, and empower through the instruction and practice of the Nguzo Saba. By embedding their principles into their everyday lives, they strive to create a positive and open-minded society. Makeba seeks to empower girls to understand that they don’t need a seat at the table; they can create their own.

Leigh’s service career is focused on building sustainable communities. He began working for AmeriCorps in 2016 conducting environmental restoration on riparian zones revitalizing habitat for keystone species. From knowledge gained through this experience and others, Leigh started a small gardening business providing customers with native plantings and sustainable garden solutions. Though this business had impact on the localized communities he worked in, Leigh hoped to orient his career entirely toward serving and developing communities in sustainable ways.

Now in his second term with AmeriCorps, Leigh is conducting a number of capacity building projects for The Society of St. Vincent de Paul on their Urban Farms in Phoenix and Mesa Arizona. The Urban Farms program at St. Vincent grows organic produce to be distributed through the organization’s community kitchens and food banks. While providing food for those in need in the Greater Phoenix Area, the Urban Farms Program also educates volunteers as well as clients from St. Vincent’s shelters. Many clients of SVdP’s shelters developed career and interpersonal skills working on these urban farms, facilitating their transition into permanent housing.

During the pandemic and prior to it as well, David spent much of his time helping others. Whenever possible, David would take the time and opportunity to see the need to help out where ever he could. Especially during COVID-19, many people were not able to go out to collect groceries so he would be the one to mask up and get those items delivered. David also takes the time to mow, shovel and collect trash for those who find it difficult to do themselves. He loves dogs and helps where he can to adopt and help many in need. He enjoys grilling then sharing many meals with others and bring together camaraderie where ever he can. Several restaurants closed due to the pandemic and David found the need to help keep several alive by bringing people to those places and sharing meals together while helping to restore the businesses to stay open and keeping servers employed. David finds ways to help wherever he can and believes that we all need to lend a hand, which just makes life that much more special!

Sagar is working in Dhaka, Bangladesh to solve the problem of quality education through the use of immersive technology. He is a young change maker, a Diana Award recipient and a UN SDG Leader Finalist who believes in the power of youth to create a impact in society. He along with his friend launched the first experiential learning educational startup of Bangladesh in 2017. The startup impacts the lives of thousands of students in Bangladesh. He along with his team is on a mission to create visual learners by providing experiential learning. Through their research, it was found 8 out of 10 students prefer experiential learning in the classroom compared to traditional teaching methods. When their technology was used the data retention rate was as high as 80%. Moreover, this solution enhanced the critical thinking and problem solving skills among students. Sagar and his team have worked with organizations such as Teach for Bangladesh, Youth Voice, Youth Worldwide Foundation, IHF, Code to Communicate and others to make experiential learning accessible to all. The startup represented Bangladesh in platforms like Entrepreneurship World Cup, Grameenphone Accelerator and others. Sagar believes every youth has the potential to bring a change for betterment.

Rosa Vasquez was born in Yuma, Arizona, to two Hispanic parents. They worked hard to try to give her everything she needed. Her only job was to study hard and achieve more than they had. When her senior year of high school rolled around, her high school counselors guided her through the college process of applications, scholarships, and FAFSA. Rosa decided to attend the University of Arizona and major in biology with hopes of attending medical school. Her senior year, Rosa wanted to give back to the Arizona community as a thank you for those that helped her during her college process. Earn to Learn, one of her scholarships, posted about college advisor positions through the AmeriCorps AdviseAz program. She worked with the staff at Cienega High School in Tucson. Her goal was to inspire other students that going to college is possible. Rosa hosted various events like FAFSA, college fairs and much more. She even dressed up as the school mascot to promote college readiness during lunch. Rosa set the example, being from a low-income family and first-generation, that going to college is possible. She always reminded students that diversity made them unique and anyone can make it in this world if you strive each day.

As a rising sophomore in high school, Shirin started Fresher Choice as a way to help disadvantaged communities lead healthier lifestyles. Watching the news she saw sad stories and problems she felt powerless to fix. But food access disparity is a problem that can be fixed – that she knew she could fix- even if just by a little. Shirin created a food stand that brings donated fresh produce to people in need, living in areas far from grocery stores. Food deserts and food waste are two major problems in our world, and her goal was to reduce waste by providing much-needed nutritious produce to communities with poor access. She established a relationship with a local greening center for produce donations, and advertised the monthly stand to low-income families of DC’s Ward 7 via social media and flyers. In the future she plans to make a school club, where she can recruit more volunteers for the greening center, spread the message about food access disparity and get more helping hands for the produce stand. Although the project sounds simple, it is simple changes in lifestyle that lead to improved health in our community

Jermaine Singletary is the CEO of the nonprofit organization Binding Ties, a teacher, an author and a community leader. He goes above and beyond to make a positive impact in the lives of others. He has been challenging others to take part in the “Binding Ties Good Deed Challenge,” as he posts good deeds that he does throughout the community. Understanding that many of the youth he is connected with come from low-income and poverty-stricken communities, Jermaine chooses to make a positive difference in their lives so they may become productive citizens within their communities. He models these activities to encourage and prepare them for the jobs of tomorrow. Jermaine understands that overcoming adversity is a way of defining your own circumstances. He truly believes that exposure yields experience! He feels that every child should have the opportunity to give their best in life. Giving a child a purpose gives them power to motivate their destiny. Jermaine is motivated by seeing the accomplishments of others through his giving. He continues to carry that motivation into the alternative school classroom where he’s taught for over 16 years.

Woori Lee is a junior student at University of Southern California. She is also a president and a co-founder of an international student-led nonprofit organization called Aurora NK, which serves North Korean refugees around the world through education, legal aid and health care. North Koreans risk their lives to flee from North Korea. However, resettlement is just a beginning. As a grandchild of a North Korean refugee, Woori has experienced how the legal and political system can impact one’s and their children’s life. Aurora NK is composed of college student leaders from 10+ colleges from the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. Aurora NK started its first action in early January of 2021, and just in a few months, it has grown into a recognizable organization involving hundreds of people from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Hong Kong and India dedicated to helping North Korean refugees. After graduation, Woori hopes to continue devoting her career to serving refugee communities around the world through international policies and health care.

After the pandemic forced the closure of in-person schools, brothers Ben (16) and Alex (19) Joel read news articles about the anticipated learning losses due to COVID-19. They were dismayed to learn that a generation of students would be forced to play catch-up, perhaps for years to come. They wanted to do something positive to help younger students left behind during distance learning. Ben and Alex created Intutorly, a nonprofit organization that matches volunteer tutors with underserved students for free, one-on-one, online educational support. By connecting volunteer high school students eager to serve with younger students struggling with distance learning, they were able to meet the needs of each group.

To date, Intutorly’s 950+ tutors have provided thousands of hours of free tutoring to students in 35 U.S. states and seven other countries. They also offer English as a Second Language to new immigrants and students in the MENA region with the assistance of a grant from the Stevens Initiative. Additionally, they plan to use the money awarded for their First Place win in the University of Delaware Horn Entrepreneurship’s Diamond Challenge to provide devices/wifi to students who currently lack access to online tutoring.

Forrest dedicates his life to helping others and consistently identifies avenues to give back to the business community, citizens and youth. He is the founder and CEO of One Vision Productions, a multimedia production and branding agency, that has been named one of Atlanta’s Best and Brightest Companies to Work For. As an advocate for servant leadership, Forrest started a Pay It Forward grant, which is annually awarded to a nonprofit organization. He is a United Way VIP Alumnus and SCORE Certified Business Mentor who assists aspiring and current entrepreneurs to start or sustain an existing business. Concerned with the development of youth, he became a 3DE Schools-Business Coach and Business Advisory Council Member for Paul Duke STEM High School. As a Distinguished Toastmaster and professional speaker, he has facilitated Toastmasters Youth Leadership Programs. The 8-week workshops train teens to become better speakers, communicators and future leaders. He is a former Community Ambassador for youthSpark, an organization dedicated to education and advocacy to combat youth trafficking, exploitation, and abuse. Forrest is a recipient of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Community Outreach Award and President’s Call to Service Award.

Shyla is the founder and CEO of PURE, People for Urban and Rural Education, a global nonprofit fighting poverty through bringing educational opportunities closer to disadvantaged children and economic opportunities to their families. Under her leadership, PURE has reached over 100,000 children and 500 public schools in India, made footprints in Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Barbados, St Lucia, Trinidad & Tobago working on Period Poverty. With over thirty chapters in the USA, PURE works both locally and globally in empowering the leaders of tomorrow.

Shyla has built a strong service enterprise which enabled the five year young organization to improve school infrastructure, sponsorships for persons with disabilities and parentless children, bridge schools for street kids and indigenous populations, skill development for youth, livelihoods, mobile sanitary pads units and sanitary pad manufacturing units. Shyla’s journey began in 2016 with a phone from a tribal village in India. Shyla is vocal about equal right and an advocate of inclusion. She is an IT professional, entrepreneur and a volunteer at PURE.

Tess is a Registered Nurse and mental health professional serving with the Red Cross since 1974. After her retirement from the NYC Department of Education she became a full time volunteer. She is currently a dual member of the Quad Cities and Greater New York chapters. She also serves as the lead for the National Staff Support Hotline and National Call Center. The Red Cross enables her to live her dream of making the world a better place by showing compassion and kindness as she works to alleviate the suffering of others. Tess and her little stuffed monkey, Yokum (also a volunteer) help others to find joy and know that they are never alone. She never underestimates the potential of others to do good.

With more than 20,000 hours of service, Tess says that there will always be one that stands out. 20 years after 9/11, she reflects not on the horrific acts but rather the kindness and that strangers showed to each other. She thinks of those who came to the Armory stating: “I want to help,” which for many translated to: “I need not to feel helpless.” Everyone was given a job to do.

Peggy and Ken Johnson have been 10-year volunteers with Operation Christmas Child (a division of Samaritan’s Purse, a charity run by Franklin Graham.) Shoeboxes are packed with school supplies, toys, toiletries and other fun items that are taken to over 100 countries and given to children who have never received a gift. The SE Region of OCC is located in Atlanta. Peggy is a volunteer in the office, helping with various office tasks. She organizes her Sunday Bible study class’ packing party, packing about 200 boxes. Shoeboxes are collected in November and dropped off at various churches. Their church, Johnson Ferry Baptist Church, is a central drop off location that Ken heads up. It involves collecting boxes from individuals and other churches. The boxes are packed into shipping containers, counted and loaded into trailers to be delivered to the processing center in Atlanta. In December Peggy takes groups to the processing center where each box is inspected and prepared for shipping. Peggy and Ken are passionate about OCC and are always ready to tell people about it.0-8

Susan never could have imagined that Equest, the therapeutic horseback riding program she started in 1981 with two blind riders and one horse, would drastically change thousands of lives. She is extremely proud that Equest has gained national and international recognition through the years, including a visit from Her Royal Highness, Princess Anne. This honor is a result of the instructors, staff and board members’ dedication not only to Equest, but to PATH, the Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship. The highly experienced staff provides programs including Therapeutic Horsemanship, Physical and Occupational Therapy, Carriage Driving, Equine Facilitated Counseling, and opportunities to participate in competitions such as Special Olympics and the Para-Olympic games. These programs ensure that Equest will continue to provide children and adults, including veterans, with programs that enable them to reach their greatest potential, regardless of their socio-economic situation. Susan sends a heartfelt thanks to all of the professionals, donors and volunteers who have made Equest one of the best therapeutic equestrian programs in the world.

After learning about refugees in preschool, Paisley knew she had to help. She’s spent half her life helping displaced kids around the world. From donating stuffed animals to kids in Syria and handing out first-aid supplies in Central America, to raising $20K to build a school for refugee kids in Europe’s “worst refugee camp,” Paisley has found her calling, the thing that lights her soul on fire. She has advocated for refugee kids at the United Nations, spoken virtually at the UN Human Rights Council and protested for 34 weeks to demand more humane immigration policies at the border. She protested out front of her house because her mom refused to take her to the border. Most recently, she created a pop-up STEM lab called the SHINE box designed specifically to help refugee children continue learning. From offline lessons to implementing bike share programs and handing out solar powered radios to connect kids to learning opportunities, she knows the future is bright, and the SHINE box will allow her refugee friends to lead the way. Paisley believes kids have the power to change the world, to be changemakers and peacemakers.

Sanika’s love for volunteering began when she entered middle school at Environmental and Adventure School in her hometown of Kirkland, Washington. She participated in her school’s community stewardship projects, which aimed to bolster her local area through giving back. That spark for service led 13-year-old Sanika to start her own nonprofit in order to translate topics she’s passionate about into initiatives to help local youth. Sanika founded Space for Youth which aims to explore, empower and educate children in four different areas — the environment, entrepreneurship, empathy and equity. Sanika designs and implements various projects for each topic to benefit local youth. For the environment, Sanika started a Vitalize Earth Day Initiative that stressed the importance of environmental preservation. As for entrepreneurship, Sanika hosted a Kirkland Children’s Fair to educate kids on business and to market their own products. Because Sanika believes empathy and kindness are core universal values that aren’t emphasized enough in the mainstream educational system, she conducted activities like Kindness Explorers camp to stress its importance. She believes that “if you changed a single person, then it’s really all worth it.”

When COVID shut the world down, Kaysie knew immediately that it was imperative to keep the community together and engaged – even if distanced. Her long-time dream came to fruition and she started the nonprofit Orange County Children’s Museum.

Since the shutdown they have implemented over 150 events, activities, classes, virtual family nights, arts & crafts, take-and-make kits, DIY decor, food truck nights, parades, scavenger hunts, game nights, holiday celebrations, graduation parades, online contests, a 5K, time capsules, educational materials, free photo shoots, mobile DJ parties, car parades, homemade gifts for hospice patients and more! While 2020 was hard, she’s thankful for it. It allowed her to show her girls that we are able to endure hard things; we don’t give up, we can thrive in the midst of uncertainty, it’s okay to be scared, and it’s also okay to be brave. And to always act with a kind and philanthropic heart. Her hope is that they were able to, or one day will be able to, recognize that we kept our sense of community close to heart, and did our best. In the middle of every awful situation, you can always find people helping. We are the helpers!

Marcel “Fable” Price is a habitual dreamer who also happens to be the former Poet Laureate of Grand Rapids, MI and the executive director of The Diatribe. When the pandemic bloomed, he found a way to create a neighborhood network, The Unification Project, to work with neighbors to provide direct cash assistance to the most underserved residents in his area. This network of neighbors banded together to pay utilities, internet bills and rent, plus buy food for those living in this neighborhood.

That project is now evolving into a way for neighbors to come together to support one another and also to enjoy events that take place at the park. He is also currently steering an initiative called The 49507 Project, an arts initiative that will work to redefine and reclaim the 49507 neighborhoods with public art that will also educate those who interact with it about systemic oppression, and how redlining shaped the neighborhoods we now see today. With a team of diverse creatives working in tandem, he hopes to make the neighborhood a multi-cultural arts district and an epicenter for local art.

It starts with toilet paper. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were shortages of basic home supplies. Jaclyn took notice and jumped into action. She placed a large storage container with extra toilet paper, paper towels, tissues and hand soap on her front lawn. The next morning, the box was empty. This continued for months, even after stores were restocked, showing a need in the neighborhood.

In February of 2021, Jaclyn received a grant from My Block, My Hood, My City to start a permanent fixture in the neighborhood. In March 2021 she launched this project officially, sharing it on social media. In just a few days, the project took off and a small team of volunteers was quickly assembled to meet the demand. As of August 2021, there are three permanent locations, 12 volunteers that have helped deliver the 300+ boxes to homebound neighbors and 800 rolls of toilet paper that have been given away. The goal is to have a box located on every block, so neighbors can take what they need- with anonymity, dignity and respect.

Shawn Ho-Hing started Talented Teen Club (TTC) with 20 girls. With the help of the community, family and friends, she networked and grew the organization to where it is now. Talented Teen Club strives to reach, teach, guide and inspire underserved youth toward healthy ways of living.

TTC served over 16,000 youths for the past 16 years. Its members have excelled above and beyond all expectations. Past members have gone on to impressive careers in various fields including medicine. As TTC’s Chief Executive Officer, Shawn Ho-Hing King would like to see the organization she founded become a household name globally without barriers. She believes firmly in TTC’s motto, “Our children are our biggest investment,” and will continue to pour her efforts into our youth because our future as a society depends on them. The mission continues for Talented Teen Club to build teens’ self esteem through motivation and participation.

After a long and arduous journey to an undergraduate degree, Chris reached the peak of his mountain, but he wondered what was next. This may have been the thought for many Black men when college graduation and the unfortunate George Floyd situation unfolded in the same month. Chris decided it was time to head home and give back to the communities that helped raise and shape him. The impact of Black male teachers has been widely documented in numerous studies, including a 2017 report from Johns Hopkins University. Nationwide, Black men are only 2% of teachers, but those who are in the classroom have huge impacts on low-income student dropout rates and college aspirations. After doing research on alternative teacher certification programs, Chris found the Kansas City Teacher Residency. This program allowed him to work toward a teacher certification while simultaneously receiving a master’s degree and being mentored by a veteran teacher. Now he is a certified 5th grade teacher at a charter school in Kansas City and is doing the work to inspire a new generation of young men and women on their journeys to the peak of their own mountains.

Parul is a recent Gargi College, University of Delhi graduate. Having studied both English Literature and Philosophy, she has been constantly working towards bringing a multi-disciplinary approach in building sustainable international development. Throughout her undergraduate three years, Parul worked with the public, private and nonprofit sectors to tackle a variety of social issues with a specific focus on digital literacy and women’s empowerment.

Parul also strongly believes in enhancing the personality and capability of women in her country. She wants to set a trajectory for Indian women who often fall prey to developmental and societal barriers created by patriarchal mindset and society while achieving their dreams. For instance, the duties of the household and child-rearing are naturally allotted to women even if they work a full-time. She founded We Believe India, an initiative working towards creating a mentorship program that strengthens the confidence of women, provides them with opportunity and connects them to a sustainable network. Members here were trained on sustainable partnership building, community strengthening, curriculum implementation, trauma-informed responses and classroom best practices.

Lillian serves as the Bank of America Austin Community Relations Manager, where she focuses on corporate social responsibility activities such as local grant making, local deployment of national initiatives and building community partner relationships and collaborations. Her passion for volunteerism led her to this role. An avid supporter of the Austin community, Lillian is a Junior League Sustainer and a Leadership Austin Essential graduate. Lillian is particularly interested in equal access to a quality education and serves on the Boards of Directors of Con Mi MADRE and Catch The Next, working to increase the representation of Latino students in higher education. She is the child of first generation college graduates and has witnessed the transformational power of higher education firsthand. Lillian is also interested in encouraging others on their journey in philanthropy and volunteerism and she serves on the Board of Directors of Impact Austin, a women’s collective giving organization that cultivates and expands the knowledge, passion and generosity of their members. Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Lillian has found a second home in Austin where she lives with her husband Mike and their French bulldog Nilla.

Jeri, president and founder of the Conor Lynch Foundation, became a pedestrian and driver safety advocate in 2010 after her 16-year-old son, Conor, was killed by a distracted, non-licensed, hit-and-run driver on October 19, while he was crossing the street on his way to the park for cross country training for his high school. Since Conor’s untimely death, Jeri has advocated locally, as well as nationally to raise awareness of the dangers of distracted driving and the importance of pedestrian safety and safe streets in general. Jeri is also a member and co-chair of SoCal Families for Safe Streets (SoCal FSS). As part of a national network, SoCal FSS are victims and family members of victims of traffic violence. Jeri is currently Co-Chair of the committee leading the Rainbow Halo project in collaboration with the City of Los Angeles, Department of Transport. The objective of the Rainbow Halo project is to install 100 memorials at intersections across Los Angeles. Jeri works closely with the councilmembers in Los Angeles and specifically in the San Fernando Valley to identify the most hazardous areas on our roads where traffic deaths and injuries have occurred.

After years of personal involvement in the local disabilities community, Charles, a long-time Bank of America employee, co-established a nonprofit, full service coffee shop business called Moji Coffee and More, serving as the organization’s board chair. The organization’s mission is to employ and nurture the civic and professional development of individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (I/DD). They employ 27 I/DD staff at two locations in Winston-Salem, NC. The management team is specially trained and experienced in working with special needs individuals. Plans are underway to open a third shop in Uptown Charlotte.

The organization’s mission goes deeper than the development of excellent baristas (called “Mojistas”) who can make amazing espresso drinks 62 different ways. It provides individualized education and professional development plans, including financial literacy, social and organizational skills training and confidence building, leading to facilitated placement of the Mojistas into fully integrated work opportunities with local partner companies. The vision is to see hundreds of Moji graduates working, living, and thriving alongside their neuro-typical coworkers and friends.

Neeraj started on a volunteer journey spending time helping nonprofits. He looked for ways he could serve more by being virtual with flexible timing and using his technology knowledge. He learned limited resource nonprofits struggle to grow their fundraising efforts, partner effectively and consistently with donors.

Neeraj filled in the gap with his expertise by building systems for multiple nonprofits across the US. His work multiplied nonprofit’s abilities in accelerating, fundraising, cultivating lifelong relationships with their constituents and increasing marketing campaigns outreach. The organizations he helped were able to make a quick transition during the pandemic, keeping their operations running without any major impacts to nonprofits’ bottom line. With advanced systems in place, nonprofits have the ability to strengthen their programs’ outreach and effectiveness. Nonprofits have greater insight into accurate fundraising, tracking enrollment data and metrics on their programs because of him. Overall, Neeraj empowers nonprofits to be self-sustainable and achieve persistent growth.

In late 2019, Oklahoma commuted the largest number of inmates in the history of the United States. Working with the Governor, his wife and the Department of Corrections (DOC), Jamie visited 14 correctional facilities interviewing hundreds of prisoners on behalf of Oklahoma manufacturers looking to hire. She also secured funding to help the inmates in obtaining their driver’s license or state issued identification before they were released. She has continued to work with employers, state agencies and nonprofit groups to look for opportunities to make meaningful connections. She takes employers directly to DOC facilities that have minimum security inmates available for day work. She brings Career Tech to employers so they can specifically design skills programs in the prison to prepare inmates for work when they are released. She continues to share resources, books and employer peer success stories to encourage employers to create a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion policy (DEI). She is currently coordinating with the State Career Tech office, DOC, Employers and some key influencers to design a statewide annual conference. The goal is proactive, intentional collaboration across agencies, as well as education for employers.

Typhani is an avid bookworm who has been a victim of bullying her entire life. She established her “Bookworms Against Bullies” service organization to help others who have been bullied and who also have a passion for reading. She is an anti-bullying motivational speaker who has spoken at numerous college and elementary classes and has written published articles about her personal experiences with having been bullied. She provides special events and contests within her community as a safe outlet for others to share their love of books and stories in an attempt to advocate against bullying and to bring awareness to the severity of the problem in today’s society. One of the events she has done recently was a Storytime On The Square event where she read themed books to a group of children and their parents teaching kindness matters and standing up for others. She has also done a Spring Into Books event and a Spellbound Book Bonanza. Typhani distributes “Bookworms Against Bullies” logo prizes, free books and information about the organization at all of her events.

Avrell is the co-founder of Assemble and president of BeGreatTogether. He saw an unprecedented opportunity to inspire movements and guide transformation by uplifting current community leaders within our neighborhoods and build future leaders by investing in our public K-12 schools. With a background of analyzing and implementing hospital policies to best serve patients within an intricately evolving health system, Stokes received his Master of Public Health degree from the University of Southern Mississippi in 2012. While in his home state, Stokes would travel through Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana with a small camera crew, documenting and advocating around issues of poverty. His passion for innovation and people led him to pursue a career in health information technology consulting and eventually led to a transition to the nonprofit sector to best impact the lives of youth and disinvested communities. In Kansas City, he co-established a nonprofit that assigns resources and builds awareness to economic, social and environmental factors impacting disinvested communities. In partnership with local community members and institutions across the nation, BeGreat Together, with the support of Assemble, will transform narratives.

Rosemary has been a servant leader for most of her life. She learned the importance of service as a child from her mother and from her experience in Camp Fire. For the past 50 years, she has modeled service in her church, in the community, as a member of the US Coast Guard, in her children’s activities, as a youth and teen mentor and as an adult Camp Fire person. She gives of herself in a way that is inclusive and challenges others to join her. As a teen she earned a WOHELO Medallion, Camp Fire’s highest award for service and leadership. As an adult she was awarded a lifetime Presidential Volunteer Service Award.

Her passion is serving those in need no matter their station in life. She works with modeling service to young people who she encourages to serve. With these young people she leads service activities serving the homeless, those in crisis due to world and other events and the community at large. She encourages them to earn the PVSA, achieve the highest service awards in Camp Fire, and ensures that they take the spirit of service into adulthood.
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Founders Gary and Trish Walker have experienced the benefits of the healing practice of art, meditation and mindfulness to combat the trauma of PTSD. Both having traveled the journey of the unsettled mind, they continue to use these techniques to treat their own trauma. Gary, a disabled United States Air Force veteran and artist, practices art to quiet his crushing anxiety and depression. Trish Walker, a licensed yoga instructor, and recent breast cancer survivor, provides her experience and expertise to provide help and care for others in crisis. Together, Gary and Trish bring a blend of art and meditation techniques that will assist in unlocking new ways to cope with restless minds and spirits associated with PTSD. Monkey Brain Art allows PTSD survivors to take part in a nine-week course which includes a variety of art mediums, and focusing on mindfulness and meditation.

Constantinos lives in Greece. He has a super power: bringing people together. He creates communities and is engaged in these communities. During the last years, he organized more than 100 volunteering activities with individuals, NGOs and companies. He works with people of different cultural or social backgrounds and ages and feels every time that human nature is a masterpiece. Nowadays, he is a volunteer in a youth community, Athens Climate Lab by Global Shapers Athens Hub. They organize interactive sessions, including all stakeholders, related to climate change and give the opportunity to interact with young people, to discuss, to exchange ideas, to agree or disagree with each other. Constantinos and his team work to provide a safe space for open dialogue.

As the founder and CEO of the nonprofit Global Society For Female Entrepreneurs, Robbie’s passion is and has been for over 30 years to inspire, empower, train, mentor and connect women so they become successful entrepreneurs and soar in both their professional and personal lives She has interacted with over 10,000 women over the years with her work. She is also the author of a #1 US and international best selling book, “It’s All About Showing Up and the Power Is in the Asking” where she offered 46 members the opportunity to be in the book and share their story of showing up and asking at no charge .

For 80% of them it was their first time of writing or being an author. The funds from the book go back to the nonprofit to help with its programs. No one on the GSFE board of the non profit is paid for service and work comes from the heart to touch lives and make a difference .

Historic Savage, MD is a unique oasis in the midst of urban development. Since retiring a decade ago Susan has applied her skills to the Savage Community Association (SCA). Her activities largely focus on the community’s goal of maintaining the “small town feel” of this old mill town along the Little Patuxent River. Leading or supporting the SCA’s annual events is just one dimension of her service. Advocacy for the needs of the town and attention to County legislation is also paramount. Susan spearheaded a David vs. Goliath-like effort to save a 5-acre fully wooded parcel destined for development. She represented the SCA through countless meetings for over seven years until the highly sensitive land, a targeted ecological area, was finally secured and added to the town’s beloved Savage Park. Susan is now managing a grant written for the SCA to assure local youth can have experiential learning opportunities in the parkland and become good stewards of the environment. The all-volunteer grant project brings together Scouts and other teens to develop digital resource units that include hands-on activities and demonstrations plus YouTube videos for use by teachers, youth group leaders and the library STEM program.

In 2015 when the Sawin boys were back-to-school shopping, their mom noticed how excited they were to pick out their backpacks when a thought popped into her mind: “What about all of those kids who don’t get to pick out a new backpack?” The rest is history!

After some research, they found there was a need for backpacks among kids in Utah foster care and other low income families. They held a lemonade stand and rallied friends and family to help support their cause and were able to donate 20 backpacks! They knew they couldn’t stop there and made it their goal to beat the previous year’s amount the next summer. In the years following they donated 50, 89, 115, 500, 892, and this year’s amount of 1013 new backpacks. The Sawin family, with the help of their friends and family, have donated 2,679 backpacks in the past six years! After they donate the backpacks to a local nonprofit called Little Lambs, they are filled with school supplies and other needed items that help kids start their school year with confidence and a backpack that’s their very own!

Noah, an ambassador for In A Perfect World, partnered with the Northwest Center in Washington, D.C. The Northwest center provides care, supplies and shelter for pregnant women and children. Noah, along with more In A Perfect World ambassadors, teamed up to help gather supplies to support the women and children at the Northwest Center.

Dr. Brett Holden, Academic Affairs Coordinator of Learning Communities and Director of the Chapman Learning Community at Bowling Green State University, has been actively supporting members of the United States military, veterans and military families through his work as a faculty member and an administrator for more than two decades. Currently, his year-long service-learning course entitled Veteran Assessment and Service Team engages students in an exploration of the complexities of military service and reintegration, while involving them directly in community partner collaborations with veterans and with nonprofit agencies to help shape social change on behalf of those who have served our nation. For his work, Holden has received several awards and recognitions, including the Ohio Adjutant General’s Award and the David Hoch Memorial Award for Service from the Ohio Campus Compact.

Haley is 17 years old from Queens, New York. She has volunteered and engaged with the community for almost 10 years. At 5-years-old, Haley started to sing and dance for community events and became the youngest girl to host Kal Ka Roshni for the National Children Culture Foundation. At 13-years-old, Haley started to volunteer for CISTA Girls, the United Madrassi Association and the MAA Program. She taught young kids about the importance of the environment and conducted beach cleanups every month. She also prepared care packages and food items for those who were in need of them. During the holidays, Haley had spent her time with the youth at the Winter Festival & Holiday Market where she painted nails, made bracelets and did face painting. This allowed her to accomplish 100 hours of community service in one school semester. During the pandemic, Haley participated in: feeding the hungry, beach/park cleanups, and school/food giveaways. At 16-years-old, Haley became the Green Spokesperson for CISTA Girls because of her hardwork and dedication for the organization. Haley never says no to any opportunity that comes her way.

Avni truly believes that “we should not be limited by who we are and where we live.” She wanted to help as many people as she could. This desire enabled her to organize and participate in medical camps in her backyard in New Jersey and in countries like India, Haiti and the Philippines. When the COVID-19 pandemic limited her travels, she stitched N95 grade PPE and distributed them to assisted living facilities, hospitals and local businesses in NYC.

Influenced by Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign, Avni collaborated with the American Heart Association to create the first ever STEM Goes Red high school club. It focuses on creating awareness and heart disease prevention by exercise. She has been teaching kids in her community how to dance and keep moving to prevent childhood obesity. The motto of her nonprofit organization “Change Will Happen” is “change will happen one small step at a time.” Not only does this organization echo her feelings to selflessly help others but it also encourages children to participate, develop leadership skills and help protect the environment. By collecting, cleaning, distributing and reusing over 28,000 batteries, her organization has saved over half of a ton of batteries from landfills.

When Caden was in 6th grade, he was briefly admitted into Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital. Overwhelmed by the amazing job they did helping him, especially the Child Life Department helping keep him entertained, he decided to do something to give back.

About a month later, he raised over $1,000 for a new gaming station and TV stand. Then for the next three years, he hosted a teddy bear drive at the holidays, collecting over 1,000 total bears for patients to receive at Christmas. Last year, due to COVID, the hospital could not accept bears. Instead, Caden hosted an online fundraiser to purchase iPads for the patients to use. The original goal was $1,500. With the help of local businesses and generous donors, Caden raised just shy of $10,000! Now 16 years old, he is already planning this year’s iPad fundraiser and appreciates the community’s support each year as he works toward helping the hospital.

In 2018, Taheatul’s fully free school, Hashimukh Pathshala, started with 35 children from the Faridpur districts sweeper community. Besides the school she founded an organization named Nondita Surokkha. Through this organization she works with marginalized communities in the Faridpur district including schools, colleges, slums, rural areas, transgender, sweeper and gypsy communities to provide them the development of and legal assistance. She is working with 30,000 women and children in the Faridpur district to ensure gender equality, empowerment of women and women’s health, development of sweeper children’s education, stopping child marriage, ensuring menstrual hygiene, preventing sexual harassment and stopping violence against women and children.

She is supplying a “Period Safety Bank” in 30 schools and some public toilets of Faridpur and started an online service to mitigate women harassment and bullying. She talks with rape survivors and counsels them to make life normal and also support their family, building social movements and awareness for justice. So far she’s worked with eight survivors. She’s helped stop about 50 child marriages. In lockdown due to COVID-19, she delivered food to 5,000 families and free sanitary napkins to 3,000 women.

Michael Valentin presently works for Janssen Infectious Disease and Vaccines (Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson). He works closely with AIDS service organizations, community based organizations, health centers and hospitals to provide HIV disease awareness education to agency participants and staff.

In addition to his work in HIV, he is an active crowd funding ambassador. During 2020 he raised over $70,000 for COVID-19 relief projects in the United States, Haiti and Kenya. He has also volunteered with natural disaster organizations such as Team Rubicon, All Hands and Hearts, St. Bernard Project and World Central Kitchen.

Michael is presently a Development Assistant Intern with JB Dondolo, working on fundraising campaigns and strategic partnerships. Also, co-lead for J&J’s Women’s Institute for Secondary Education and Research (WISER) International, a nonprofit organization providing high-quality girls’ education. Lastly, he serves a Community Engagement Board member for Rise Against Hunger, an international hunger relief nonprofit organization that coordinates the packaging and distribution of food and other aid to people in developing nations.

Born at 21 weeks, Katie Jean Davis has a passion for giving back to her NICU community. Katie has designed and implemented her program Katies Little Angels, an organization providing support services throughout the United States, to give back to NICU families. Katie and her team of 60 nationwide volunteers have collected over 13,000 diapers and wipes, baby blankets, NICU family supplies, and provide words of inspiration to NICU families. At 14-years-old, Katie is on a mission to give back by providing services to families that may need a little extra support during their hospital stay or after graduating from the NICU. Katie has also launched a clothing line called Charjean Couture where a portion of all sales go back to Katies Little Angels.

Dr. Afoh-Manin, MD MPH, is an emergency medicine physician and entrepreneur with experience in public health and disaster management. Dr. Nana is a founder of Shared Harvest Fund, a social enterprise geared towards releasing talented professionals from student loan debt through a rewards-based volunteer match program. Shared Harvest | myCovidMD™ has served over 5,000 residents, provided $200,000+ in student loan relief credit, and remains an attractive CSR and employee wellness program.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Nana and Shared Harvest launched the myCovidMD™ initiative and the VAXEQUITY project to provide a tactical, community-centric COVID-19 response through the provision of COVID-19 testing, vaccinations and wrap-around social services to individuals in high poverty and medically underserved communities. The initiative allows Shared Harvest to provide COVID-19 testing and vaccinations to Black and Brown communities, ensuring equal access to care while debunking myths that perpetuate vaccine hesitancy. Dr. Nana has felt the effects of the student debt crisis as well as the COVID-19 pandemic first-hand and is proud to have developed a program that battles both challenges and works to build a better future.

Sailor Ray Stark received special “any servicemember” letters. They said he was appreciated. Because of kind dedicated volunteers, Ray felt love half a world away. Due to a simple gesture, Ray founded The Hugs Project. They send care boxes and now, Hugs sponsors blast injured combat Vets in effective PTSD treatment. Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy heals brain wounds and by extension, it heals veterans and their families.

Studies in the US & Israel prove HBOT efficacy. Fewer prescription drugs are needed for anxiety, depression and sleep. That should help stem the military suicide rate since many drugs include a side effect of “suicidal ideation.” Recently, Ray had a blood clot. His leg was amputated. Antibiotics failed. Doctors said they had to take the rest of the leg. Instead, HBOT was tried and Ray kept his leg! Nothing slows this incredibly humble man. He never wants a spotlight. There’s never a charge to military members or those who love them. No one in the charity takes a salary. Donated money is used as donors intend: helping military troops and veterans. Some believe one person can’t make a difference in this world, but Ray Stark is proof.

Rimen is currently leading Nirmaan Organization, a student-run NGO at BITS, Pilani with 150+ volunteers working under 10 projects in three major domains: education, women empowerment and community development. As a young volunteer, Rimen believes that not everyone gets equal opportunities due to distinctions created in the society, and with that vision she and her team have been working hard to provide equal opportunity to all, irrespective of the social distinctions.

Nirmaan has been working to provide employment opportunities for women through two major projects impacting over 60+ women beneficiaries and providing them with a reliable financial support. Nirmaan has also been improving the educational infrastructure to bridge the digital divide and impacting 250+ student beneficiaries. One of the recent milestones of Nirmaan was during COVID pandemic lockdown. Nirmaan conducted various ration distribution drives for 150+ families along with the necessary medical assistance.

Through Bucker International, Sneha was fortunate enough to receive the opportunity to work with a beautiful young girl in kinship care. Every Tuesday night, we would be able to talk while Sneha helped her grow in mathematics, something she has so much potential in. Due to COVID-19, they were only able to do so virtually, but nonetheless were able to learn so much about each other and witness the growth in her mindset and skills in the few months they talked. From seeing her conquer long division to showing Sneha her favorite stuffed animal, she thoroughly enjoyed setting time aside from classes to volunteer with Buckner International through the student organization, Foster Connect at UT Dallas. Sneha has learned so much about mentorship, patience, care and service, and hopes others may take from her experience and get involved as well!

Aniket is a 19-year-old currently studying engineering science in IIIT Delhi. He founded “Indian Science & Technology Campaign,” a New-Delhi based nonprofit that focuses on strengthening scientific skills of all those young minds who lose their interest in science in very early age due to less imparting of practical knowledge of science in most of the schools.

ISTC worked on the idea and a thought that “practicality is everything.” From this thought, Aniket started a revolution to build a field of education which will help children think beyond what is taught, to explore beyond what is expected and to think beyond the boundaries. In 2020, He also co-founded “The Tale of Humankind,” a youth-led platform to engage, empower and inspire young people to be part of the change.
It is built on collaboration and focused on capacity building, we are a passionately driven youth leadership initiative to enable, connect and engage youth advocates to start the conversation and move from ideas to action. A recipient of Diana Award 2020, the most prestigious award given to young people in memory of Princess Diana, he is also a TEDx Speaker & Ashoka Young Changemaker. He strongly believes in the power young people have to change the world.

Jason is helping the Flagstaff Family Food Center rebuild their volunteer program since it was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. FFFC relies on volunteers to operate its hunger relief and children’s literacy programs. Jason has witnessed incredible community support for FFFC since he started in January. For example, 25 volunteer groups have returned to help with their Hot Meal Service for one night of every month despite the ongoing pandemic. The total volunteer hours went from 1,026 in January to 2,160 in July. The total volunteers per month also increased from 177 in January to 258 in July. Jason’s service with FFFC has been a rewarding experience and he’s grateful the community has stepped up to fulfill FFFC’s mission of “neighbors feeding neighbors, every day.”

Hetal is the founder and executive director of SPEAKHIRE, an organization that develops tomorrow’s leaders. Hetal developed and launched all of SPEAKHIRE’s programs, which have impacted hundreds of young people and their families to reach greater economic mobility and career success.

SPEAKHIRE partners with districts, schools and other community-based organizations to reach young people primarily from low-income, immigrant communities across the US, and ensure they have access to quality culturally responsive and representative relationships that help them improve their skills and know how to navigate the school to career pathway. As a result, young people have shifted from low-paying jobs at local delis or babysitting to higher wage internships or jobs in their career sector of interest. They better understand who they are with the increased culturally representative network, people who share their experiences and can provide targeted advice and preparation to achieve more aligned colleges, greater financial aid and higher paying career oriented jobs. One student says “She gives me this confidence to talk to other people who I didn’t know before. That’s why, to me, Ms. Hetal is my role model.”

Like so many of us, Barbara felt helpless at the beginning of the pandemic. She’s sewn all her life and decided she could sew to help keep others safe. She banded together with an Atlanta group to provide masks to area hospitals, nursing homes, doctors’ and dentists’ offices. She made and donated over 2,000 masks over a six month period. She continues making and donating masks to those who need them.

During the peak of the COVID second wave in Bangalore, with the help of committed volunteers, Amrutha was able to help distribute rations kits to over 1200 families. Also in that campaign, she successfully reached out to over 700 transgender people with ration kits, health camps and vaccination drives. To address the lack of access to relevant medicines due to financial constraints, the team distributed over 500 medical kits to families in the slum in Bangalore. They were also able to conduct a vaccination drive for over 100 persons with disabilities.

Considering the poor living conditions of the local sex workers, they started a livelihood project for sex workers in Bangalore. To promote the significance of menstrual hygiene they distributed over 2000 reusable napkins to tribal women in Karnataka & UP. They also provided Redmi 9 prime mobile phones and school stationery to teenage girls in high school, which was an immense motivation for them to pursue education. Overall with their efforts they were able to serve many families in need who then expressed their heartfelt deep gratitude.

Brenda became a volunteer advocate in 2014 with Riverview Sexual Assault Center in Iowa. In 2012 she was diagnosed with Follicular Lymphoma, which is a treatable but not curable cancer. When she became a person in need, she was supported in her cancer journey by family, friends and community. She believes that your perspective on life changes as you battle. She wanted to find a way to make a difference in someone else’s battle. Through this journey we call life, she hopes to stand beside someone and lend her shield to help in the battle. It is good to be blessed, but better to be a blessing.

Max founded the World Family Children Foundation in 2014 after travelling to Hohoe, Ghana to work as a teacher’s assistant in an orphanage. In a world plagued by vast inequalities and systemic injustices, he learned that even modest, community-based contributions could make a profound difference in the lives of many. A founding principle of the WFCF is “youth helping youth.” Max wanted to create an organization where young people like him could affect change in a meaningful way: unlike other 501(c)3 organizations, the WFCF Board of Directors is comprised entirely of students and young adults. Since its creation, the WFCF has sponsored several international volunteer trips to build schools or work in safe houses for abandoned children, fundraised over $30,000 for typhoon relief and albinism advocacy, and established a nationwide free virtual tutoring service which has helped 500+ low-income students. Max finds his work with World Family Children to be exciting and rewarding, and he hopes that the organization can continue to grow and find more like-minded young people to support its cause.

Miles is the 2020 recipient of Bank of America’s Global Volunteer Award. A West Point graduate and current Major in the United States Army Reserve, Miles is focused on servant leadership within his community, especially within the veteran community of Charlotte. Miles is a graduate of the City of Charlotte’s Civic Leadership Academy, which has provided him the opportunity to grow as a community leader while striving to improve the quality of life in all of Charlotte’s neighborhoods. Miles serves as the president of the West Point Society of the Carolinas, which enables him to support over 500 Academy graduates while providing community leadership in the greater Charlotte area. Miles also sits on the Board of Directors for the Carolinas Freedom and the Advisory Boards for Patriots Path and the USO of North Carolina. Miles also serves as an ambassador for Veterans Bridge Home, where he focuses on supporting veterans in successfully transitioning into the Charlotte community after military service by identifying their education, employment and healthcare needs and connecting them to available community, state and federal resources.

Constance is a director at Bank of America and serves on the Atlanta Technical College Board of Trustees as board chair focusing on resources for the college including scholarships, equipment and workforce innovation programming. She has always been passionate about how education positions individuals for better opportunities and honed in on technical education as a key driver enabling paths to better careers. Constance enjoys serving on the Board of Trustees because of the opportunity to directly engage with students as well as support scholarship funding. This work is important to her because of how the college maximizes each dollar received and the accelerated impact that technical education can have on a student’s life. Constance is proud to have Atlanta Technical College named a recipient of a $1 million jobs initiative partnership to further expand on their work to ensure underserved students have a guided pathway into high-wage, in-demand jobs. This program is part of Bank of America’s $1 billion commitment to social and racial equality and its $25 million commitment to enhance upskilling and reskilling for Black/African American and Hispanic-Latino individuals.

Sandhya is the head of India operations of a global nonprofit, PURE, People for Urban and Rural Education. Popularly known as PURE’s “Ammamma,” which translates to Grandma, Sandhya travelled over 150,000 kilometers by air, via road and on foot over three years reaching over 100,000 children with her menstrual hygiene awareness program. Sandhya reached the under-reached and underserved populations deep in the forests, up in the hills, those who live by the river banks and deserted landscapes, educating them about the natural biological phenomenon called periods.

Sandhya met children who were using rags, grass, saw dust, plastic bags and paper to manage their menstrual cycles. She met children who were dropping out of school when they hit puberty. She met children who were being married off at barely 14 years of age. She fought for them and still does, to get them the awareness and facilities needed to keep them in school, to give them their childhood back and secure a future that is at the risk of being snatched away. Sandhya implemented sustainable solutions to manage periods – biodegradable pads, reusable pads and menstrual cups. Sandhya oversees the sanitary pads manufacturing units that create livelihoods.

Hema is CPO of PURE (People For Urban And Rural Education). She is a full time employee at United Health Group and passionately volunteers for PURE. She came from humble beginnings and did her schooling in government schools with lack of basic infrastructure, like no clean water and restrooms. A few years ago, she travelled with her two daughters to India and visited her school. She saw kids facing the same challenges that she faced decades ago and realized she had to do something about it. Once she joined PURE, she was able to address the issues in government schools in terms of proper infrastructure, RO plants, dining halls, libraries, laboratories and especially restrooms. As the CPO, she works on causes by unleashing the potential in privileged youth in terms of innovative solutions and advocacy in addition to fundraising. Hema believes youth are the future and it’s very important to inculcate empathy and compassion at very young age. The slogan of PURE Youth is “for the children – by the children.” Hema recently received President’s Lifetime Achievement Award and she dedicates that to PURE Youth ambassadors.

Isabella’s Community Service started at age six and has been nonstop for the last fifteen years. She founded Fraire’s Pass It Forward nonprofit to provide free soccer camps for kids who need it the most in Memphis, TN. She also volunteers with The Shelby County Veterans Count to help veterans get back to a better life. US Soccer awarded Isabella Volunteer Of The Year Southern District for her work with her soccer camps. She loves working with kids who need help and will continue to do so for as long as she is able. Community service is a life’s work for her and she enjoys every minute of it. In September 2021, Isabella will apply for the FBI College Internship Honors Program as another way to serve her community.

Realization of his truest self became a snowball effect when Nirjhor co-founded BNMPC-ELC almost three years ago. His vision of English to be seen not as a complex academic subject but as a beautiful language had reached the program’s young minds and gave them a platform to be themselves.

Last year’s fellowship from Civics Unplugged in the US pointed at his power of being a young citizen. Invited to become an innovator at The Knowledge Society in Canada, Nirjhor is eveready to debunk the future brought to him by the 4th Industrial Revolution. Even during COVID, he remained proactive and created an open-curriculum for students from grades 3-5 to learn English alongside working on other youth leadership qualities, all for free, achieving the 4th SDG. Nirjhor is a fundraiser at Purnota Foundation, a volunteer for almost seven years of his school’s Science Club, and recently his paper was featured on SJWP. He focused on establishing the 6th SDG of ensuring safe water for everyone including the Rohingya community. As a former Lance Corporal of BNCC, Nirjhor believes we need more leaders to bring a real positive impact!

Sharing her passion for volunteering and providing low-income families with diapers, Janet has volunteered with Happy Bottoms for 100+ hours in the past year, serving regularly in multiple roles. She has been an essential part of the development of new programs and events and has taken on several leadership roles. Janet wraps diapers and leads shifts, inventories and organizes diapers at one of their partner agencies, delivers diapers and potty training kits to families who lack transportation, distributes diapers to families from Happy Bottoms warehouse and serves on the committee for fundraising events.

Anne Marie is a vocational French teacher driven by the knowledge that learning a new language and culture is a key factor to making this world a more inclusive, diverse and equitable one. Teaching and learning are passions of hers. Over the summer 2020, she decided to offer free Zoom French classes to all the students who were interested in continue practicing their language skills. Those classes brought smiles to all of their faces. The students were connecting socially and Anne Marie was learning so much from their feedback. Then, distance teaching started for real. The French club officers were ready to offer peer tutoring sessions and conversation café. Students had a hard time finding advisors for clubs so she became the advisor for five additional clubs, on top of the French one: UNICEF, cancer society, green earth, language hub and freshmen mentoring program club.

Throughout the year, she offered culturally relevant experiences to all students. Her AP French class interviewed a French scientist from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who had recently been inducted to the American Physical Society. Her French 3 and 1 students had virtual pen-pals in France. They all took the National French Exam and won 41 medals.

Dr. Jacque has volunteered over 5,000 hours with a variety of organizations. As a Court Appointed Special Advocate for Children (CASA), she advocates for children’s best interest in foster care. She also serves with TAGGED Youth In Foster Care to provide donations of clothing, school supplies, and items for youth in college. TAGGED also provides life skills and workshops to prepare youth and teens for successful futures. The T. Rich Foundation, Inc. is committed to enhancing the community by empowering future leaders through intergenerational mentorship, scholarship and experiential learning opportunities. Dr. Jacque enjoys serving alongside her husband, retired military commander, Dr. John Eaves, the Youth Pastor at United Faith Christian Ministry. She takes her personal time and money to mentor young girls and sponsors retreats to increase self-awareness and self-esteem. Daily Pearls for Girls is a program for girls and women of all ages by providing books and resources. Additionally, Dr. Jacque gives back to the community by hosting “Meet the Author with Dr. Jacque Eaves” to spotlight authors. Dr. Jacque is committed to helping others realize and reach their goals.

Larry worked as a volunteer to fill in for a paid manager who had retired, and before his retirement, being that person for three days a week during the COVID partial shutdown. Still working 5 1/2 days a week. Responsibilities included training new volunteers and acting as a consultant for existing volunteers. Duties primarily involved managing internet sale of used books and audio-visual items removed from the county libraries or donated by third parties.

For Lena, being a mentor is more than a volunteer opportunity. She is now the person she needed growing up. SPEAKHIRE has granted her the chance to answer questions she dared not ask in her youth fearing being seen as inferior. Being open about her story allows youth to relate. Lena bases every session as an open forum so that if there are topics the mentees want to discuss but don’t have someone to discuss them with, they are welcome to open up about them during meetings. Topics discussed range from what it means to be children of immigrants, being an immigrant, college, religion and even marriage. This opportunity has served to remind Lena that despite how different she was from her surroundings growing up, she was bound to be more than what her eyes could see for herself at such an impressionable age. The ability to speak encouraging words and advise young receptive immigrant youth is a feeling Lena has yet been able to put into words. It is because of SPEAKHIRE that she was able to step into her purpose after years of feeling lost. It is because of every mentee that she has encountered since 2019 that she feels like she has been able to make a difference in the world this is a treasure she holds dearest to her heart.

Hollis is a fundraiser, philanthropy advocate, public speaker and researcher. At age nine, Hollis founded Juggling for Jude, a soccer juggling fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. With more than $510,000 so far, Hollis has also raised awareness worldwide about the fight against pediatric cancer. She speaks to audiences around the country, encouraging young people to research causes and access passions and talents as avenues for giving. She also advocates for adults to support the development of purpose in youth, through education, mentorship and networking. Hollis is currently working with world-renowned market researcher, Dr. Howard Moskowitz, to support St. Jude. She has won international, national and regional awards, including the Diana Award, Prudential Spirit of Community Award, Diller Tikkun Olam Award, President’s Volunteer Service Award (3x, Gold), Invisalign Changemakers, US Soccer She Believes Hero, etc. Recently named one of People Magazine’s Teens Changing the World, she was also featured as an “Inspiring Kid” on NBC Nightly News Kids with Lester Holt. Hollis most treasures her connections with childhood cancer patients and families and says, “I will juggle until no child has cancer!”

Liter of Light Bangladesh is a research & innovation-based social enterprise researching to innovate DIY solutions to some vital problems in our society. They so far lit up more than 90,000 peoples’ lives directly with their volunteer-made water bottle lamp, bamboo bottle solar lamp and streetlights. 3000 underprivileged became Solopreneurs by taking the training. They installed dozens of water purification systems free-of-cost that ensuring clean water to more than 30,000 people, trained hundreds of women on reusable pad making. Through their renewable energy and green skill projects, they could reduce 2750 metric tons of carbon emissions where in Bangladesh. 185 million people use kerosene lamps that produce 45000 tons of carbon every years. They could reduce kerosene use which is toxic and dangerous, where around 2000 million liters of kerosene are used in Bangladesh. They are promoting and training on making clay and bamboo utensils such water bottle, plate, spoon, that’s helping reduce the plastic use. Their awareness campaigns impacted 10,000 youths regarding climate action, renewable energy, plastic pollution, SDG, etc. 2000 youth were engaged in volunteering initiatives where they made solar lights that later changed people’s lives.

In 2019, Lauren started a nonprofit called Adopt-a-Doll, which collects gently-used American Girl dolls, refurbishes them, and places them up for “adoption” with girls who are having a difficult time in their lives, whether it’s a disability, serious illness, homelessness or domestic abuse. After carefully matching dolls with their new “moms” Lauren personally presents the doll to her new family and facilitates a thank you note and photo, so the original owner can be assured that the special doll has safely ended up in a loving home.

To date, Lauren has successfully hosted nearly 70 adoptions, delivering a little bit of joy to dozens of little girls. She partners with organizations such as Oakland Children’s Hospital, Shelter Inc., Shepherd’s Gate, Running with Love and Down Syndrome Connection. When a little girl receives a doll from someone she doesn’t know, it tells her that somebody cares about her, she is loved, and the world is good. Also, it’s fun to rescue American Girl dolls from storage and give them a brand-new life. Every doll deserves a good home!

Lucia has been an active changemaker since she was just five-years-old. Heading to kindergarten, she learned that some kids don’t have what they need to succeed in school, so she launched a campaign to get school supplies into their hands. Now at nine-years-old, Lucia has expanded her support from students in Los Angeles to include students in Oakland, Minneapolis & DC. She will impact 1,000 more students this year, bringing her total to over 5,000 students!

Jockas is a young social entrepreneur, philanthropist, peace advocate, feminist, researcher, agriculturalist and a community social developer with focus on youth, women and adolescent girls agenda. He obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the Kyambogo University Kampala, Uganda. He is a World Youth Forum Fellow 2019 and currently serves as the executive director at Wilmat Development Foundation that he founded in 2014 and the Consortium Team Lead of the Gender Based Violence Prevention Forum Uganda. Through his work, he advocates for the rights and well-being of marginalized women, adolescent girls, young people and children from disadvantaged communities and their active participation in the sustainable developmental agenda of their own communities of Uganda and beyond. So far, with a team of young and passionate people, we have impacted over 5,000 beneficiaries in various communities. He believes that international cooperation and assistance is important for overcoming such challenges. In addition, the use of social entrepreneurship and financial literacy as a way to bridge the unemployment gap among the youth in Uganda, Africa and across the globe coupled with use of education to eradicate poverty.

As a junior ambassador for In a Perfect World, seven-year-old Amoura is involved in many service projects throughout the year. After learning about a young boy with autism who wanted to build a sensory room in his school, she sought to learn more about the needs of kids with autism. She soon found out that kids with autism and other special needs need sensory support so they can reset, calm down, focus and come back ready to learn! She realized this was really important, so together with her sister, she launched an Autism Awareness & Acceptance campaign to help him reach his goal. The response was so overwhelming that she was able to get the sensory room built AND also help 1,100 other students with special needs in 17 different states! From sensory support to an autism acceptance library, teachers were very grateful to receive support for their students. And Amoura exemplifies that even little kids can do BIG things!

Giving back is an important part of humanity to Anna. Sharing this passion is something she finds truly rewarding. Sharing with my high school students is even more rewarding. When they complete a session at the local food bank, pick up that last piece of trash at a beach clean up or put that last peanut butter & jelly sandwich in a Ziplock bag the rewarding look on their faces is priceless. Anna feels better knowing she is helping them become exemplary citizens in a global society.

Inspired by Nassau County Legislator Joshua Lafazan, Ethan created a Red Cross Club at his high school. Although Ethan organized in-person beach cleanups and nursing home visits pre-pandemic, COVID-19 led to a focus shift. As pandemic death rates skyrocketed worldwide, Ethan’s mother told him about the body bags piling in her hospital. As a medical technologist, she was working overtime analyzing COVID-19 test results. Thus, Ethan led an initiative with other regional Red Cross Clubs to support local healthcare heroes. He organized a virtual Bingo night and fundraisers at local restaurants to foster a sense of community, support local businesses at risk of closing, raise over $8,000 for the Red Cross, and buy masks for Nassau University Medical Center. Additionally, Ethan helped create accompanying posters to further thank his local healthcare heroes. After the success of the COVID-19 initiative, Ethan coordinated further fundraisers, mapping events, environmental cleanups, food drives, and another local business initiative with Luv Michael, a nonprofit dedicated to meaningfully employing autistic adults. Ethan is excited to continue spearheading new community initiatives on the American Red Cross National Youth Council.

As part of an Air Force family, Eddie was taught the value of strong relationships within the community. In order to promote police-community partnerships, in 2019 & 2021 he organized National Night Out campaigns in the City of Vacaville at a neighborhood elementary school because of a lack of accessible nearby community programs and the existence of a known drug house on the same block. Police would schedule drug busts during school holidays so kids would not be placed at risk during the raids.

Needing full community buy-in, Eddie worked with the city council and nonprofits to provide financial resources & food. He then recruited youth to go door to door to inform the neighborhood. In 2020 & 2021 Eddie has assisted in distributing 1,000 food boxes to local families in need, supported distributing of a total of 100,000 masks for COVID-19 prevention and volunteered at over 15 medical clinics to vaccinate over 5,000 people during the global pandemic. Finally, during the holiday season for the past four years, Eddie has honored the ultimate sacrifices of fallen military members by helping unload truckloads of wreaths at the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery and laying them on 26,000 gravesites.

Patt is the mother of three and grandmother of five. She has been married for 32 years and is very active in her community. She loves making a positive difference in her community. She hosts a Soup Kitchen on MLK Day annually with her team of volunteers. She has been doing this for 10 years now. People don’t only come for the free meal, but also to receive fellowship and know they are cared for by others. Patt has worked in many programs mentoring youth and is seen as a philanthropist by many. She has volunteered with the Red Cross Disaster Team, BSA, GSUSA and Willow Grove Children’s Church group. She previously worked for Boys and Girls Club of Covington County. She wants to see the young people get the chance for a better tomorrow. Often we are suppressed because of our environment. She shows us ways we can succeed and enjoys helping young people become strong adults by teaching them skills they can carry through life. These skills include organization, responsibility, dependability, positivity, and leadership, as well as independence and team work.

Depression, anxiety, self-image issues and loss have been a part of Jordie’s story for a long time. Her life was full of anguish and in 2014 – at just the right time – Jordie received a card of encouragement that changed her life. This card reminded Jordie that it was okay to struggle, and that there was still a purpose for her. That card held just enough hope to keep her going. It inspired her to create Compassion Cards, a nonprofit that sends thousands of cards each year to remind people that they belong. Behind the scenes of all this, Jordie also became a caregiver to her father who was suffering from dementia. In 2020, as her father continued to decline, Jordie spent countless days by his side. Simultaneously, she was pouring all the hope she could muster into keeping Compassion Cards going amidst COVID-19. That year, Compassion Cards sent over 18,000 cards to isolated seniors citizens, essential workers and many more deeply impacted populations. Jordie lost her dad in the summer of 2021. He always served as an inspiration for the work she did. In the wake of his death, Jordie was compelled to continue on once again, this time to honor her dad’s memory.

Saicharan is 16-years-old and is attending Evergreen Valley High School. Since he was five, Saicharan has been actively involved in several community service projects and benefited several thousands of unhoused individuals. He was a core youth volunteer at Community Seva, a nonprofit formed in San Jose, CA. Their mission is to feed the hungry and serve the homeless. For his 16th birthday, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Saicharan took an initiative to help 103 unhoused senior citizens who do not have access to a kitchen living in trailers in Oakland, CA. Tasty Treats is a youth led project that contains a grocery bag of 10 non-perishable, ready-to-eat, microwavable food items. Saicharan initiated a Facebook Fundraiser and raised more than $2,500, purchased all the items, packed them, and hand delivered them to the unhoused seniors. Saicharan delivered these 100 bags each on two separate occasions and distributed them to the seniors. The seniors were so thankful for these bags and said that it will help them throughout the week. Saicharan’s inspiration has influenced many youth in the community to carry out selflessness. Currently, he is working to build two benches for a homeless shelter for his Eagle Rank.

Stunned by the inadequacies of traditional climate change solutions, Romal founded an organization called “Reimagining Earth.” With four innovative programs, her initiative inspires others to channel their unique interests towards advancing the environmental movement. The first program uses filmmaking to spread powerful messages about climate change and galvanize people into action. She hosted 15 youth filmmaking workshops. The second program applies mapmaking to account for global urbanization rates. Charting infrastructure in secluded places worldwide, these efforts inform better carbon footprint estimates. This program has amassed a collection of 75 unique maps. The third program increases the standard of environmental education by proposing new bills to fill gaps in legislation. This program increased awareness in California youth, spurring the creation of Env. Youth Councils in cities. To further increase this education, Romal launched her school’s environmental magazine & podcast series through the Env. Club. The fourth program stems from her passion for origami and curbs paper wastage by using recycled materials. With community participation, she collected 1,350 sustainable origami crafts that were distributed to medical communities as therapeutic gifts.

Bruce collects to help veterans deal with the tough times they face every day. Last year he raised almost $22,000, which helped feed 1,100 veterans in York County, so this year he set a goal at $25,000 and as of right now has raised $30,000! Bruce does whatever he can do to help veterans where he feels government has failed them. This is what he believes in and will keep doing as long as he can.

When Chavela moved to Trona, CA four years ago, she noticed the town was in need of veterinarian assistance. Dogs were roaming everywhere, and it made her sad. It took her a couple of years but she managed to help. Along with the community, she has been successful and able to help over 200 pets with much-needed vet care. She has found people to donate dog food and other supplies. She also helps people distributing dog food as needed daily. Chavela has come to realize she is a vital tool in the community. Instead of them having around 30 dogs a week roaming the streets, they’re down to about two dogs roaming a week. She loves dogs so much and it’s important for her to be able to give all the help she can to the dogs in her community. Her wish is to be able to convert her yard into a safer place to hold lost and found pets.

In early 2020, Tae Kyu noticed that the gap in quality of education between students of different backgrounds became more extreme due to the pandemic. He stepped up to create a program that would provide any and all students wanting to receive academic help with free, virtual, one-on-one tutoring lessons. Though Tae Kyu was only 15 when he created Pass the Torch, his dedication to serving his community was unparalleled. Pass the Torch is a not-for-profit 501c3 organization with a mission to spread education to all students. Through Pass the Torch, Tae Kyu has given 3000+ lessons to students who could not afford academic help otherwise. He leads a diverse team of 110+ tutors from 21 different U.S states/territories, 14 countries and five continents.

Tae Kyu’s work has been recognized by the U.S Congress, through an award issued by Rep. Meng, and by NYS legislature, through Senator Liu and Assemblyman Braunstein. Tae Kyu has won multiple grants, including the Alexander Capelluto Award and the Hershey Company Heartwarming Grant, which combined provided Pass the Torch with thousands of dollars in funding. Tae Kyu has also been featured in local, national and international newspapers in multiple languages.

As Executive Director of GreenLight Fund Atlanta, a venture philanthropy fund, Joli works to lift up the voices in her community in an effort to identify opportunities for social innovations to address systemic barriers to economic opportunity faced by those experiencing poverty. Citizens coming home from prison face tremendous employment barriers. During the exploratory process, Joli met Warden Steven Perkins, the leader of the Metro Reentry Facility. Warden Perkins took the time to educate her on both the challenges and opportunities of his important work. Because of Joli’s belief that all things are possible if given the opportunity, regardless of one’s background, he invited her to be the keynote speaker at the prison’s graduation ceremony. Some inmates graduated from the program while others received their GED, AA and/or BA. The theme of her commencement address was “The Power of Tomorrow” and each of the graduates received a journal inscribed with “The Dream Is Free but The Hustle is Sold Separately.” It was an honor to share her life’s experiences as one inmate told me his most meaningful takeaway was, “don’t be afraid to make mistakes as failure is necessary to learn and grow.”

Sanjana is a junior at Rutgers University-New Brunswick studying IT with a minor in Political Science. She has dedicated the past four years of her life to volunteering and helping expand a nonprofit called the People for Urban and Rural Education and has taken on the Director of Global Outreach position. Not only has she traveled to India and Barbados in order to address and end period poverty, but she has also raised funds in order to provide assistance to improve schools in Nepal, Ethiopia, Uganda and Trinidad and Tobago. Her experience interacting with students in India inspired her to deliver a TEDx talk in order to encourage other students to volunteer and make a lasting impact. Sanjana intends to continue her advocacy work for students in underserved nations and communities to guarantee that they do not face any barriers while getting an education.

A lot of life changes have taken place over the past few years, and many have been devastating. As a widow and senior citizen, Georgia found herself sinking into a very dark place rapidly. She had to do something, somewhere, somehow. In March 2020, she became a volunteer at Sharing Life, a nonprofit dedicated to helping those needing financial assistance with rent, mortgage or utility bills

The COVID-19 pandemic was in full havoc mode. Fear and panic seemed to be taking hold everywhere. Georgia wanted to do something to help, to encourage hope. In doing so she found help and hope for herself too. It’s given her a purpose again. Georgia is so very honored to now share her life with others.

Having retired from a pediatric nursing career earlier than expected to take care of her mom and following her mom’s death, Diane was looking for a volunteer opportunity that involved helping children. Being a CASA volunteer turned out to be a great way to work with a child and/or children, as well as their birth family and their foster family. Having had a couple of resolved cases, Diane finds her current case of three years especially meaningful, as she has had an opportunity to develop a close bond with her nearly four-year-old child and extended family, and hopes to retain that bond following closure of the case.

Diane’s favorite Forest E. Witcraft quote that began with her nursing career and continues with her through today is: “A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove… but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.”

Ella-Brooke is the founder and executive director of (ViP) Virtual & in-Person Tutoring and Peer Guides Program in Forsyth County, NC. She developed the program after her ability to tutor children after school was hindered by the COVID-19 pandemic. In May of 2020, she reached out to assist other academic programs, virtually or in-person, once essential workers returned, but was unable to due to the volunteer age restrictions in her area at the time. She knew that she and her local peers had the skills to assist children remotely that she was sure would struggle learning from home.

She began with a group of seven talented virtual tutors and designed a training program, uniform, website and tutor kits to get them started. Ella-Brooke began forming partnerships with organizations requesting assistance, and now partners with Wake Forest University’s Office of Civic & Community Engagement, Crosby Scholars and Big Brothers Big Sisters, just to name a few. Her program has engaged over 100 local high school students in tutoring, both in-person and virtual, and has tutored close to 150 local students to date. They have raised over $1,100 for BBBS, organized community clean-ups and are hosting a large 9/11 event this month in NC.

High schooler Olivia founded nonprofit Cancer Kids First (CKF) at the age of 14, in hopes of bettering the childhoods of cancer patients. Starting in 6th grade, Olivia sold artwork to her classmates to raise money for her grandfather, who was diagnosed with cancer, as well as her elementary school teacher. Unfortunately, both her grandfather and elementary school teacher passed away the following year. Their deaths affected her and her family greatly, which is why CKF was started to honor their memories.

Since its founding, Cancer Kids First has sent over 20,000 cards/crafts to pediatric cancer patients, donated close to 10,000 supplies, and raised $25,000+ for increased access to treatment in low-income countries. Presently, CKF has been able to expand its organization to over 18,000 volunteers worldwide. Cancer Kids First’s impact isn’t limited to the US; CKF has been able to distribute necessities to patients in Mexico, Colombia, the Philippines, South Africa and the U.K. Through leading CKF, Olivia has learned so much and has met other incredible change makers. She hopes to continue uniting teens all over the world to join in on the mission to normalize the childhoods of kids with cancer.

Maria founded the nonprofit Purple Pansies in 2008 following her mother’s death from pancreatic cancer, as she felt called to raise awareness and crucial research dollars for this chronically underfunded but deadly cancer. The mission of Purple Pansies is to raise funds for research, clinical trials through Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), early detection and aid families in our community who have family members suffering from pancreatic cancer. To date, Purple Pansies has raised over $3 million. Maria is also the owner of Casa Nuova Italian Restaurant and has been motivated to help her community during the COVID-19 pandemic. They brought together Casa Nuova and Purple Pansies to provide meals to front-line workers at various hospitals and Kroger (a premier partner) grocery workers across Metro Atlanta, as well as to Meals by Grace, Safehouse Outreach, Operation Smile and pancreatic cancer survivor families. Maria immigrated to the US from Cuba in the 1960’s and was taught to always give whatever she had to those in need, whether it was food, clothing or advice. Her goal is to give back in honor of her mother and so many who have died from pancreatic cancer by giving compassion and making a lasting difference in the lives of others.

In 2018 Holly started Walls of Love after many years of volunteering in the community. Holly is a domestic violence and sexual assault survivor as well as experiencing homelessness for awhile after fleeing while she was pregnant with her oldest daughter. At the time, she was employed and made $7.11, too much to be able to get assistance. Having to humble herself and ask for help and not be able to get it was devastating. She never wanted anyone to feel like she felt again if she could help it.

Holly’s labor of love has turned into a nonprofit in 2018 and is now a movement. In almost three years they’ve done 1005 walls in 21 states and helped over 325K with no grant writers and no corporate backing. 100% of donations go back into the community.

Leading the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t something Dr. Faisal had thought of when he became a critical care ICU doctor. Together with a team of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and respiratory therapists, they confront this disease that has thousands of patients arriving in intensive care units gravely ill. Caring for patients during a pandemic is a mortal threat to the safety and well-being of not only the critically ill patients who need care but also to the very people that are helping save their lives.

We’re also tackling an “infodemic”- false, misleading and confusing information that makes it difficult for people to make educated decisions about their health. Through it all we’ve had to find ways to care for patients, by creating new treatment protocols, therapies, and even developing new devices, while also battling this infodemic locally, nationally and internationally as well. Losing so many patients, friends and colleagues has taken a tremendous toll on medical teams. Faisal has become the counselor and consoler of families and colleagues around the world – it’s been his job 24/7 for over a year and a half and he is proud to have been there for them. He’s learned so much and has hope that through the support of Houston Methodist in creating the Center for Critical Care they’ll continue saving lives. He’s also thankful for the support of his wife and family that in the end makes this all worth it!

As the son of two teachers, Sel has always been passionate about education and decided to pursue that through his career. Since a young age, Sel always knew the importance of education and knew he was destined to help others. In 2007 his dreams became a reality when he co-founded River City Science Academy. Sel is known throughout the Jacksonville community for being a strong leader. He and his wife, Angie, began hosting Friendship & Gratitude dinners every night at their house during the month of Ramadan. These dinners offer strangers of all ages and backgrounds a chance to celebrate a tradition that they may not be that familiar with. In Sel’s twenty years in America he has shown his love for the Jacksonville community and has given thousands of individuals the chance to understand, love and learn through his leadership.

Pained by the lack of proper medical awareness, Shreekar decided to learn CPR. After becoming certified in CPR, he founded ERT at 17 to teach CPR, The Heimlich Maneuver and stroke recognition in various schools and apartments. Over one year, ERT trained over 1000 people and became the top-rated Emergency Response Training organization on Google. Shreekar was then invited to the UN headquarters in New York, where he spoke in front of several dignitaries, including Finland’s ambassador to the United Nations.

Shreekar is now a youth board member at Reap Benefit. As a youth board member, Shreekar holds the organization accountable and oversees initiatives such as the “Call Your Representative” campaign, which has activated over 100 citizens to call their corporators/MLAs/MPs. Shreekar is also a member of Tejasvi Surya’s Youth Can Lead program, which teaches young citizens civic leadership skills. As part of the program, he has mapped and solved different civic problems in Bangalore.

Micah lost his 22-year-old son 2019 to a Fentanyl overdose. He started a nonprofit called “Micah’s Hugs” The mission is to educate on the dangers of drugs, bring awareness, help those struggling with addiction and offer Narcan training. Micah helps the unhoused by buying warm clothes, gloves, socks, beanies, jackets, scarves and blankets and distributes them, often bringing food to hand out as well. He has worked hard building trust of unhoused individuals. Micah has worked with Catholic Charities doing outreach so that the next level of help can be determined. In honor of his son, they started a memorial scholarship fund that allowed 17 people to register for six weeks in a sober living environment.

For the California fires, Micah spent days rescuing animals, working through the nights, helping evacuate people, and then cooked to feed everyone. He also purchased food for fire crews. During COVID, Micah made over 700 masks to donate to hospice nurses. In addition he made hand sanitizer that he gave away and 3D mask straps for all the nurses. Micah volunteers for many organizations, youth sports, agriculture and school events. He’s helped get measures for the high school to pass so that further funding could be obtained. He has taken care of elderly and responded to their needs, and spent 18 months tending to a cancer patient who was struggling to take care of herself. If ever someone is in need, Micah is the first to step up; his acts of kindness are endless.

Asma is the daughter of John T. Inge – an original Montford Point Marine & recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal. Graduating from Howard University, and the Medical University of South Carolina, an Advanced Practice Nurse, in 1987 established Muslimat Al Nisaa, Health and Social Services organization for underserved and uninsured women and children, the unhoused, refugees and trafficking victims. Believing every man, woman and child has a right to receive quality care in a dignified manner, to be assisted in achieving optimal health regardless of race, creed or socio-economic level, her organization originated as a response to her grandmother, lacking health care, dying from a preventable condition. Discovering women experiencing violence in their lives, in 2007 she opened her home to shelter survivors of domestic violence.

On Super Bowl Sunday she serves hot bowls of chili and distributes toiletries to those homeless on the streets, a 20-year event she termed “Chili Bowl Sunday.” Her other annual ‘Love Thy Neighbor’ events include “Back To School Health Fairs” for the uninsured, food pantry and distributing winter clothing to anyone in need, volunteer health services in public schools, low income housing to women in shelters, those in group homes, those in foster care, and to the mentally and physically challenged allowing them to be able to participate in the Special Olympics. Receiving no government money, she survives solely from the kindness of strangers.

Esther is the founder and executive director of Homework Helpers, an organization that provides free virtual homework help and tutoring on-demand for underprivileged students. She founded the organization after noticing the difficulties that students from underserved communities were experiencing due to the pandemic and the challenges that arose from remote learning. Through the organization, students can receive quick assistance with their homework and assignments via a free mobile app and helpline.

Esther’s mission is to provide equitable and accessible help with homework and schoolwork for under-resourced students so that students who need assistance with learning will be able to get the help they need free of charge. To date, Homework Helpers has helped hundreds of students with their math, science, history, English and other homework, and continues to provide free on-demand academic assistance to help students succeed.

Kyle is currently a junior attending Syosset High School. At a young age, Kyle was always helped by various teachers whether in or out of school and wanted to do the same thing they did. That is why when he was still attending elementary school he volunteered to be a music teacher for a day for two years in a row. This eventually kickstarted Kyle’s music tutoring career with Musical Relief, a nonprofit music organization. Through teaching young kids music, Kyle has found joy and satisfaction seeing them grow as a player and a person. Using the donations donated to Musical Relief, Kyle and his fellow colleagues bought and donated meals over 200 hot meals to the Ronald McDonald House and senior citizens. He also performs music and cooks meals at the House.

Nihal has always had a passion for the world we live in, but it wasn’t until he was 10-years-old that he realized he could do something to help. When he turned 10, Nihal began to learn about how batteries can damage the environment through pollution, causing fires in landfills and more. After learning about the issues caused by the batteries we use everyday, Nihal started to learn more by reading widely and carrying out research door-to-door with local people and businesses. In 2019, he founded Recycle My Battery, a nonprofit organization focused on boosting recycling rates and raising awareness about battery recycling.

Since then, Recycle My Battery’s free battery bins have recycled more than 100,000 batteries, preventing them from ending up in landfills where they could have caused significant damage. Beyond this, Recycle My Battery’s wide-scale campaigns have helped to educate approximately one million people across the US and India. There are now more than 100 children volunteering with the organization who have contributed around 10,000 hours to the cause. Nihal has received several national and international awards for his environmental work, as well as personal recognition from multiple influential public figures.

Samantha started her environmental journey in the third grade when she joined the environmental nonprofit, Grades of Green (“GoG”). During elementary school Samantha participated in various projects through GoG, including establishing a food sorting program at her elementary school, managing a column in the GoG newsletter and speaking at an environmental conference. During her high school freshman year Samantha founded the GoG club. The club participated in the international GoG Climate Solutions Campaign, in which the club ran three beach cleanups in three weekends. Her sophomore year campaign, a stand-up paddle board cleanup, was cancelled due to COVID. During her junior year, Samantha connected the club remotely to participate in the GoG Climate Solutions Campaign. The club launched a virtual Meatless Monday Campaign run on Instagram. The campaign used weekly giveaways to create engagement within the local community. The campaign had over 35,000 impressions and won the 2021 Grades of Green “Best Influencer Award.” The same year, she acted as a spokesperson on behalf of the environmental advantages of plant-based diets. Samantha was interviewed on ABC News Radio, as well as on webinars, podcasts and publications. Samantha used these platforms to raise awareness of the benefits that plant-based diets have on combating climate change. Samantha continues her work on climate change and sustainability with various non-profits. She is currently entering her senior year of high school, and will be leading her club on the final Climate Solutions Campaign of her high school career.

Thien-An is the charter president of the Houston Unity Lions Club (HULC) and founder of the Unity for Youth Leo Club. These are civic clubs dedicated to delivering a variety of humanitarian services in the United States and worldwide. Their mission is to provide help and support for those that need it through teamwork, leading by example and improving the world through kindness. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, they were serving nonstop, not only in Houston but in remote areas in Vietnam, India and Mexico. HULC did over 250 service activities despite the pandemic to address the personal protective equipment shortage hoping to slow the spread of the virus. They provided over 200,000 free masks to the communities, supported the front liners and essential workers by providing PPE such as surgical/3M/N95/KN95 masks, gowns, gloves, hand sanitizers, face shields and over 7,000 hand-sewn cloth masks with filter pockets. They provided thousands of hot meals, drinks and snacks to frontline workers at the Houston Police Departments, Houston Fire Departments and surrounding hospitals. They served thousands of hot meals and care packages to the homeless, sick and/or disabled seniors, and those affected by Winter Storm Uri and Hurricane Ida.

Asia is the founder of the Beautiful Spirited Cupcake, a youth girls initiative program for undeserved girls ages 4-11. This program is a part of Beautiful Spirited Women, a support group of women whose sole purpose is to uplift women and girls to higher spirits, fellowship and assistance worldwide. Asia knows firsthand what it is like to volunteer early. Starting at the tender age of four, Asia began giving back to her community and making a difference. She has assisted with over 455 letters of hope filled with inspirational and encouraging words to girls worldwide; she has fed and clothed over 500 hundred people in need and sorted and packed perishable boxes for seniors in her community. Asia has spoken and served over 250 girls through free workshops, seminars and community service projects by creating fun opportunities to help guide girls on the right path.

When COVID-19 started, not thinking twice, Asia wanted to create hygiene kits with inspirational notes and assist with “Letters of Hope” to mail to girls worldwide. She hopes to expand by working with girls worldwide and visiting schools to encourage them to get out in their community to make a difference.

After retiring as high school teacher Ernest started to look for volunteer opportunities. He came across the San Diego Blood Bank (SDBB) and has been volunteering since 2008. Ernest has contributed over 7,600 hours since joining. He volunteers as a donor center host at SDBB’s North County Donor Center in Escondido, demonstrating a high level of customer service and willingness to help others. He helps staff tremendously by greeting donors, monitoring them for any change in condition after donation, offering snacks and other refreshments to donors and thanking them for their donations. Ernest enjoys being at the donor center three days of week because this is his primary activity, getting to socialize and meet new people.

Minnesota has one of the largest educational achievement gaps between black and white students. And with the tragic events surrounding George Floyd’s death transpiring close to where Johnny lives, African American communities in Minneapolis have become increasingly vulnerable. Additionally, the pandemic has caused some students’ access to additional educational resources to be severely limited. To bridge these gaps and bring communities together through educational enrichment opportunities, Johnny created NeuroForHeroes, in which he researches, plans and teaches neuroscience curriculum to elementary schools with low standardized test scores. The topics he teaches include memory, vision and brain development. Each session of the program involves a short presentation, interactive classroom experiment, anatomy drawing station, discussion activities and Nemours KidsHealth movie.

Adrianna became inspired to help spread awareness about dementia after participating in the care of her great grandmother. Adrianna is a changemaker and Girl Scout and has earned all three of the highest award in scouting: the bronze, silver and gold awards. Adrianna has developed engaging activities for residents in senior dementia units and has volunteered her time running these events. In addition, Adrianna has created a wesite in which she provides information for families on helping loved ones with dementia. She has designed a program for other scouts and organizations to use to promote awareness about the subject that is close to her heart. This program is currently being used by groups from New Jersey to Washington. Her efforts to help promote dementia awareness are to be commended.

Since 2015, Malavika has been involved in volunteering activities by contributing to several nonprofit organizations. Motivated to take on her own personal interests through community service, she founded the Zeal Against Hunger Club (ZAH) in 2018. With a vision of providing food for the impoverished, she has set a goal of fundraising and distributing 1 million meals by 2025. When the pandemic struck, Malavika, as president and founder of ZAH, created a website to spread awareness about her club and offer immediate help to other hunger organizations.

In addition to the initial packing events, ZAH fed 300 families COVID-hunger relief kits consisting of COVID essentials and food supplements (masks, hand sanitizers, protein bars, water, milk, etc.) to three homeless shelters in the Bay Area. Other ZAH COVID-relief activities included a canned food drive with 500+ cans distributed and an Alameda County Community Food Bank virtual drive providing 4,000 meals. Over the last 3 years, the club accumulated more than 5000 volunteer hours and raised funds equating to 75,000 meals.

Apart from ZAH, Malavika has supported the community during disaster relief including the California wildfires, where she distributed meals to those affected and sheltered in motels with no permanent place to stay, and distributed over 1,000 water bottles to the Santa Cruz water district. These efforts were recognized and highlighted in the 2020-2021 Innerview National Community Service Awards where Malavika received the Ambassador Award for 221+ hours of community service during the COVID pandemic.

Hannah is the executive director of CAL GIVE Foundation. The nonprofit activities that they do to contribute back to the community include teaching underprivileged students in fields like music, STEM and English as well as holding fundraiser\ events (like benefit concerts and recycling) for donations to public service areas that may need them.

Their recent and ongoing project was donating pallets of hand sanitizers and masks to places that were running low in proper sanitization resources, like human trafficking survivor centers. Their mission statement is meant as an inspiration for finding genuine joy in being able to serve the community and to spread this message to as many people as possible.

Arthur and Amanda started the Clarksville Youth Care Group, a nonprofit that prompts youth community service. At the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, there was a nationwide PPE shortage. After they learned the Johns Hopkins DIY face shields method, they decided to make face shields to protect the front line heroes. They led the project from fundraising, material processing and distribution, volunteer training, video tutorial-making, hospital outreach, PPE delivery and product improvement. The group grew to 53 students from 15 public schools. Within 3 months, they raised $13K and made 3660 heavy-duty reusable DIY face shields, quickly donating them to 101 different essential groups (46 hospitals, 4 urgent cares, 18 dental offices, 12 specialist clinics, and 21 first-responders) in over seven states.

In March 2021, Maryland schools moved from virtual learning to hybrid. After realizing the valuable efforts the teachers have put into classes, Arthur and Amanda initiated the Free COVID Teacher Care Kits project to show their support towards teachers. The Teacher Care Kits include one handmade school-themed cotton mask, one handmade ear saver, and one mask filter. They offer 20 designs that cover almost all school subjects such as English, Math, Social Studies, Science, Music, Art, PE, Health and more. The group sewed 800+ Kits and donated them to 31 public schools. Now they are making mask lanyards for students to keep their masks safe and clean.

Zeynep started volunteering with Embrace Relief in May of 2021 as COVID cases were increasing dramatically. Through Zoom, she was able to connect with Asli, a young girl that has moved from Turkey to Greece due to political crisis. Zeynep’s goal through this program was to help Asli improve her English speaking skills and help her confidently express herself through a foreign language. Asli and Zeynep meet weekly and each week they try to find a new way to keep the conversation going. Her favorite activity to do with Asli is to look at an image with a lot of things going on, and have Asli describe each scene in English. Afterwards, she asks about her opinion of the image and things she likes and dislikes about it. Towards the end of each meeting, Asli tells her about her week and they get to bond over their similar hobbies. Zeynep enjoys meeting with Asli because of how much they can learn from each other. Even though they meet once a week, Zeynep helps her learn a foreign language while she teaches Zeynep so much more. She is thankful for this opportunity and very grateful for the things it has taught her.

Krish serves as chairman and founder of HD Solvera, a multi-purpose medical nonprofit. He aims to accomplish the organization’s premier goal, which is to enhance the delivery of quality healthcare to all people and to lessen the damage of the world’s most significant health problems. The organization achieves this through conducting biomedical disease research, assisting healthcare centers with direct patient care and providing monetary support to hospitals. 11,000 viewers have contributed to Krish and the organization’s media presence. Krish’s research has received grants and endorsements from the National Institutes of Health and Department of Public Health affiliated laboratories. He has presented at conferences including Global Behavior Health, Missions Health Conference and America’s Sight & Innovation Conference. His team has dedicated around 1,000 service hours in assisting healthcare centers in the southeast US, India and Pakistan.

Shannon has been volunteering at COVID-19 vaccination sites since January 2021 all around the Blue Ridge Health District. Nurses, staff and other volunteers sometimes joke that she could run her own vaccine clinic because she volunteers so much that she knows almost all of the ins and outs.

When the going gets tough many people back out, but Prakash gets more energized to help the homeless community. During the pandemic in 2020 many homeless friends lost jobs, schools were shut down and low-income families struggled for food. Prakash has been volunteering for 11 years. He has worked hard 24/7 to help the homeless community, often under dangerous conditions, with infections and death rates rising. Often, he drove 150 miles to pick and drop food at shelters. His friends and family stayed away in fear of infection and were worried about his health. In the pandemic winter, Prakash set up a “Tent-City” under the Jones Pass Expressway in Baltimore, MD for the homeless, organizing donations providing tents, warm clothing, firewood with daily hot soup, bread and blankets. Despite disagreements from his family, he continued to work in the community. After a long day’s work, he would sleep in the basement of his home to keep his family safe from exposure to the virus. He is a true selfless hero in the community well deserving of recognition.

Mahesh is currently working as Commissioner of Police of Rachakonda police commissionerate in Hyderabad since July of 2016. In his 25 years of service as a law enforcement officer, he worked in the Manipur, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states of India in numerous capacities and brought laurels to the police department. Community policing, anti-human trafficking and mentoring unemployed youth for civil services totally free of cost are his areas of expertise.

In 2017 the US Department of State honoured him with a hero award for his exemplary work in the field of anti-trafficking. In 2004 a community policing project under his leadership received two awards at the International Association of Chief of Police Conference in Los Angeles. In 2006, an anti-trafficking project under his leadership bagged two awards at the IACP annual conference Boston. In 2018, for a worksite school project enrolling migrant workers’ children into schools after rescuing them from child labour work in brick kilns, he has been honored with individual civil and human rights awards from IACP. More than 800 youth he has mentored have been selected into prestigious Indian Civil services in the last six years. His community services during the pandemic have been lauded by all.

Mari has worked tirelessly to create opportunities for under-represented people who might otherwise be overlooked. She’s a champion for Latinx and other under-represented voices, for mental health and for youth in their pursuit of higher education through her work with Blue Shield of California and its employee resource groups, community organizations like Stockton Scholars, Oasis City Center, UC Davis and the University of California. In partnership with these organizations, she’s designed unique programming, giving and volunteer activities, help raise thousands of dollars for scholarships and nonprofits, and more. Mari has focused on career development, higher education access, equity and other social determinants of health. Her work gave under-represented employees and communities hope, a sense of belonging, encouraged them to invest in themselves and their communities and created safe spaces for conversations about tough topics like systemic racism, racial violence and inequality. Her work has also helped to normalize mental health as health. Her efforts make others feel seen, heard, respected and valued, opening doors of opportunity and enabling under-represented people to dream big and walk through those doors.

Giving back to the community and coaching high school football have always been passions for Jarod. He started out coaching at the youth level for four years, and he currently has been coaching high school football at Helix High School in La Mesa, CA for the past four years. His student-athletes mean the world to him, and to be able to be a positive impact in their lives is what drives Jarod every day to be the best coach he can be for them. From coaching youth & high school football he’s learned that it is not about winning and losing. It is about building relationships with teenage men hoping to help them grow in every area of life, not just football. Community service is important to him because he believe that is what he was put on this earth to do – serve others and stay humble while doing it. Three models Jarod lives by and always teaches his student-athletes are to keep God first, stay truthful to yourself and your peers around you and commit to a great cause other than yourself. Lastly, Jarod will continue to serve his community in any way possible, because if he can make a positive impact on one person a day his life is complete.

“We are not rich or poor because of how many things we have, but because of what we can give to others.”
Under this premise, Daniel learned at a very young age that although he did not have material things he could offer others the possibility to stop feeling the lack of dignity that sometimes poor people believe. He could give people the recognition that what they are, like or do is valid and meaningful. He works all over Latin America sharing his own story, inspiring and developing people through giving value to diversity, history and the talents of others. Each one must understand what makes him rich to share and learn from others. Daniel also founded a company to work with other entrepreneurs to promote a new way to do business.

Patricia works for Home Instead nursing agency. She enjoys her work with seniors and people that cannot get out of their house. She did have a lot of challenges along the way, including the one that she was nominated for. It was a woman who could not get her house cleared and was in danger of losing her home. But Patricia knew that if she was in that position that she would pray that somebody would help her. So she always puts herself in the other person’s shoes and act as she would want someone else to act. Her mother raised her to be a blessing and she would be blessed. Patricia tries to live by those words.

Mark recently completed 25 years as co-chair of the nationally televised AES 500 Festival Parade. Remarking on this accomplishment, U.S. Representative Jim Baird, who represents Indiana’s 4th Congressional District, said in the Congressional Record, “Using his experience as the former director of bands at McCutcheon High School, he has helped over 45,000 students from 425 Indiana school participate in the nationally acclaimed IPL 500 Festival Parade.” Baird continued, “Dr. Eutsler’s consecutive years of service stand out among the more than 3,000 volunteers who will fill roughly 7,000 positions for the month-long May event every year. Dr. Mark Eutsler is a pillar of the community. I express my deepest thanks and appreciation for his passion and for the service he has devoted to a program that defines Hoosier heritage.” He is co-founder of the Railway Heritage Network, Music Arrangement Trust, Indiana Performing Arts Hall of Fame Foundation, Indiana Racing Memorial Association, Friends of the Retired Members of the Indiana General Assembly, and American Racing Memorial Association. He has chaired the Indiana Occupational Safety Standards Commission and Serve Indiana Commission. He served on the board of the John T. Conner Center for East/West Reconciliation and the Lacy Institute For Ecumenism. He received the President’s Volunteer Service Award for Lifetime Achievement from President Biden in February.

Kellen’s service story began many years ago while living in Australia. One day, Kellen came across a group providing laundry services to the unhoused out of a van. He was amazed by how impactful such a a simple act had on those suffering. It became a catalyst for a different way of thinking about and addressing homelessness in the United States. The moment stuck with him for many years, until he met his future partner, Jennifer. Kellen and Jenn started dreaming of a service that would touch people in a way that others had not. By offering showers and laundry to those living on the street, they would remind people that they are human and important. In 2019, Showers For All was formed. Kellen and his close friend, Sean, spent months building a trailer to serve at the first mobile shower/laundry unit. Focusing on comfort and humanity, the Showers For All trailer provides a sanctuary of solitude for those escaping the street for 30 minutes at a time. It’s not just about being clean. It’s about hope, dignity and change.

Therese has served as a volunteer with the 500 Festival whose mission is producing life-enriching events and programs that celebrate the spirit and legacy of the Indianapolis 500 and foster a positive impact on the city of Indianapolis and state of Indiana. As a volunteer with the nationally televised parade’s marching band committee, she has ensured the participation of more than 45,000 students from 425 Indiana schools. Professionally, as a second-generation physical therapist, in addition to her practice, she has served on the Indiana Board of Podiatric Medicine and was appointed to the newly created Indiana Physical Therapy Board. She engages with colleagues throughout the country through involvement with the Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy. She has also served on the American Physical Therapy Association—Indiana Chapter’s Ethics Committee and Political Action Committee. She is co-founder of the Railway Heritage Network and Music Arrangement Trust. She has served on the boards of the John T. Conner Center for East/West Reconciliation and Lacy Institute For Ecumenism. Therese received the President’s Volunteer Service Award for Lifetime Achievement from President Biden in February.

Elissa has made a significant difference in her community, touching the lives of many. She has ensured families have food, clothing and toiletries. She has also organized special outreach projects which made it possible for teens to go to prom, children to celebrate their birthdays and veterans to be honored, just to name a few! She forms a bond with her clients and encourages them to do their best. One thing that is very important to Elissa is making people smile and feel good about themselves. Her goal is to wake up every morning and make someone else’s day better. Helping others is integral to Elissa because she and her children were victims of domestic violence and they went through a great deal of struggle. They began to get back on their feet only to be faced with a house fire. During this time, they were shown a great amount of love and kindness from strangers. When Elissa and her daughters were facing abuse, they went to SERV, a domestic violence shelter. Elissa remembers one thing: “They showed me I could be STRONG when I was broken. My life has taken a 360! Now I walk through the doors of the shelter door with a different mission, to give a HAND UP to those in need. Each time I deliver to a family there, I sit in my car and take a moment to realize how far my children and I have come, because it brings back a flood of memories.”

Rick served in the US Army during the Vietnam era and retired as a Major. His civilian activities included being an executive of a publicly traded life insurance company, a commercial real estate broker and a non-attorney principal in a law firm focusing on real estate development. He moved to North Augusta, South Carolina and operated a lawn care business and a weekly radio show about gardening and lawn care. He represented Habitat for Humanity on the North Augusta Chamber of Commerce, voted by his peers to be the 2015 Ambassador of the Year for the Chamber. Rick served as co-chair or president of the Greater Augusta Employer Committee, the North Augusta Service Network, the Aiken Community Service Network and the Edgefield Interagency Council. He’s the interim director of the Aiken County Volunteer Organizations Active in Disaster – VOAD. He is active in Kiwanis, serving variously as board member, secretary, club president, as Division Lieutenant Governor, and as liaison to the United States Army. He was a founder of the North Augusta Kiwanis club. Rick is also active in his church and served as public affairs director. He belongs to the Concerned Ministers Fellowship in Aiken, South Carolina, and occasionally appears on a weekly radio program dedicated to community service. In a part-time position with Walton Options for Independent Living, he assists persons with disabilities achieve or maintain independence.

Arya’s journey in health advocacy began when she joined Stanford University’s Join Jade hepatitis campaign. She discovered that the task of advocacy required partnering her efforts with needs and cultural dynamics of at-risk communities. She led a health booth, translated brochures and was a part-time intern with college graduates. Even when shelter-in-place limited JoinJade’s community center access, Arya quickly began spearheading efforts such as a mask fundraiser and virtual global walkathon that replaced the physical footprint with a digital one. Such networking led to a partnership with RDLA (Rare Disease Legislative Advocacy), offering opportunities to translate community needs into policy change. As she listened to patients, she sensed that Join Jade’s awareness-oriented framework was a natural fit for RDLA’s patient-centricity. She began calibrating Join Jade’s mission to RDLA’s political infrastructure. Building on this alignment between community health goals, she proposed legislation for mandatory HBV screening in CA. This led to an invitation to present the legislation and share stories of hep B patients to Kamala Harris’s office. Arya also works as a researcher and youth leader at the South Asian Youth Mental Health Organization. With UCSF researchers, graduates and more youth, she adds to the limited literature regarding South Asian youth mental health, an underrepresented group in mental health studies, through curriculum development and research.

Dominic first heard about Forging Opportunities for Refugees in America (FORA) at the end of the 2019-2020 school year. He learned that FORA needed volunteers to tutor their students online over the summer since they could not provide in person tutoring due the global pandemic. FORA provides high dosage tutoring to refugee children who have had limited access to education (many are Rohingya who have fled Myanmar where they and their parents have been prohibited from accessing government services like education). FORA’s work was especially critical during this time period because online schooling was an even greater a challenge for students still learning English and with limited help at home. After training, Dominic began tutoring a first-grader Monday through Friday for one hour every afternoon. He was able to continue tutoring for FORA through the spring of 2021. Primarily teaching math, Dominic loved getting the opportunity to explore concepts and hang out with a first grader every day. He was proud to learn that she made top marks at school that year in face of tremendous challenges. He was also fortunate enough to be able to travel to FORA and take part in a one-week internship where he got to meet the student, her family and the FORA’s staff, learn more about FORA’s in person programming edit promotional materials and explore FORA’s beautiful home: Chicago.

13,000 bags of groceries were filled in 17 months, and Jagger was a part of this heartfelt community effort supporting 752 individuals through COVID. She has stepped up when her community needed it and the gratitude expressed has been eternal. Shop N’ Drop not only greatly influences families that they serve but has a life-changing effect on Jagger, as she is always present working to provide the best for all of the families. Relieving families of the stress of going through this pandemic alone and giving them a shoulder to lean on has been her number one goal. With adult support Jagger checks in with every family. She makes sure they are meeting their needs and provides anything special they might need that week. She even translates important information regularly regarding vaccines, job searches or rent concerns. These phone calls take approximately 5 hours each week. Making the holiday season magical for the families has been Jagger’s highlight. Jagger assisted a Day of Giving providing families with many personalized household essentials and food item bags. Jagger hosted a Holiday Cheer event to honor students’ success in school with gift cards and other surprises. Jagger is the light in her community.

Tim Volunteered at the MCDH Vaccination Program when the vaccines first started at the end of 2020. He worked as many of the clinics each week as possible, helped organize the greeting area initially when we first started and only had maybe a 60-100 scheduled people coming in for their first vaccine, and also covered the recovery area to watch for any acute reactions as people waited out their observation time. Tim entertained and answered any questions the clients may have had. Tim planned ahead to increase the seating capacity for observation based on the number of projected clients, which grew to about 1300 per day, from the staff and would have it all set-up by the next clinic. He restocked the restrooms and informed the main staff when items were running low at the end of each clinic. Tim was one of the first to arrive each day and one of the last to leave so lead staff would not be alone when leaving. If they saw Tim there for the day they knew they were covered and safe. Tim’s main area of oversight was the observation area which had grown from 80 to 300+ seats. Tim is a FF/EMT retired from a local Fire Dept so was very useful in the Observation Area and assisted whenever an EMS incident occurred and had staff contact 911 if necessary ASAP. Tim worked from December beginning until the end in March. He would do any task asked of him by the staff and sometimes be ahead of the request! He assisted with wheelchairs, cleaning and humor for clients when needed.

Alison is co-founder and president of the Autism Science Foundation (ASF), a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support research to understand the causes of autism and develop new treatments. ASF also serves to increase awareness of the needs of individuals and families affected by autism. Since its founding in 2009, ASF has funded millions of dollars in research to try to understand why 1 in 54 children are diagnosed with autism. As the mother of a child with profound autism and legal guardian of her adult brother with autism, Alison is a natural advocate. From 2005-2009 she served as EVP and a member of the Board of Directors at Autism Speaks. She also currently serves on the board of the Yale Child Study Center Associates Committee, the Autism Baby Siblings Research Consortium, the CDC’s Center for Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities and Mental Health News and is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ NY State Immunization Coalition and the International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR). She also played a critical role in the passage of the Combating Autism Act of 2006, which authorized the doubling of current federal funding for autism research. She was also the longest serving public member (12 years) of the NIH’s Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC). Alison is a true role model and lifelong advocate and her efforts have led to scientific breakthroughs that have improved the lives of many people with autism.

Pastor Billy was awarded the Presidential Volunteer Service Award signed by President Joseph Biden. He has served over 5,000 hours of community service as Pastor of Olive Branch Missionary Baptist Church. Billy is a community leader, pastor, husband and friend. He continues to serve his community through financial giving and community outreach. In his commitment to community service, he has collaborated with other community leaders and members to assist in meeting the various needs of the community through exemplary role modeling, leadership and by giving back to his community. Every year, since the inception of the historic Olive Branch Missionary Baptist Church, he has led his church in providing for the spiritual needs of the community and to the nation.

Trilok is a high school junior who knows first-hand what it is like to struggle at school, and conversely, how succeeding in school is a huge self-esteem boost. He drew on his superior mathematical ability and his own tough experiences to launch a volunteer tutoring service. Trilok spends dozens of hours every month teaching math to struggling high school students. Seeing them go from dreading math to actually enjoying it is a tremendous source of joy for him. After the COVID-19 pandemic hit, finding students to tutor became more difficult as most schools went to the virtual format. Trilok handled this challenge by developing his website where other volunteer tutors can sign up to offer their expertise. This way, he has been able to expand his reach to serve many more students.

Kenzie’s journey to serve others and to make a difference in the lives of others began with a speech she gave for 4-H entitled “Hunger in our communities.” When she saw all the statics for her town, she was embarrassed she didn’t know this existed where she lived. Kenzie visited local food pantries and decided she wanted to start a different kind of food pantry – one with choices, one that educated people how to make better food choices for better health, one that resembled a grocery store and one that people were not embarrassed to frequent and one that offered something special for children. Within three months they captured the attention of Tyson Foods and Food Lion that came on board to help. Within six months she had a mobile cooking trailer for summer called Kenzie’s Kids Summer Cafe delivering hot nutritious meals to “at risk” children during all school breaks. They traveled to TN, SC and TX to provide food assistance to those affected by natural disasters. The pantry is not just a food pantry but a family. It’s not just about food but how you make people feel! Now seven years later, they have a 10,000 square foot warehouse set up like a grocery store, a fully functioning soup kitchen cooking 750-1,000 meals a week, 15 outreach sites across the state, a senior citizens mobile pantry, the MAD clothes closet, fully functioning mobile disaster food trailer and weekly food distributions. Since opening they’ve served over 6 million meals and over 700,000 pounds of food.

Nakeya has a career in mental health and has worked in various healthcare and educational settings. She has always felt called to engage with people and it felt necessary to seek a service-related profession. The oldest of her siblings and first granddaughter, Nakeya is a natural leader and often expresses that she always wears her invisible crown because she is powerfully in control of her own thoughts, feelings and actions and that makes her the queen of her reality. Nakeya’s career in mental health began with coaching one person at a time to feel powerful and in control of themselves and their path in life. She is a passionate advocate for the wellness of children and families; especially under-resourced families. Nakeya is the founder of a nonprofit organization, Therapeutic Play Foundation, that seeks to transform the world for the better by building resiliency and healthier communities through play-based outreach and education. She also formed and acts as the chair for the Black Mental Health Task Force, coalition of mental health professionals, clients, community-based organizations, educators, community leaders, entrepreneurs, students and artists who have united to support mental health wellness within the Black/African American community. Nakeya is also a mother, and serves as an advocate for happy and healthy births for all mothers. Her service to others is as a healer and educator using her own lived experience as a point of connection.

Deborah’s life of service started at an early age over at her grandmother, Mama Bertha’s house. This home was always filled with children of all nationalities and races… over 360 children called that place “home.” At an early age of 11, her footsteps hit the pavement to go door to door in the neighborhood collecting change for the March of Dimes and Diabetics Association. These were only two of many well known organizations that funds were raised for. Through the years she continued to be a helping hand in her community and church where she was ministry driven from outreach, prison, kitchen, music, youth, Sunday school and Christian education and served in the MWD as Congress Youth Director for over 20 years. Her plate was often full being a Scout Leader, with PTA activities, volunteering and partnering in the North Little School District including homeless projects donating food, school supplies, uniforms and clothing for students. Deborah is 18 year Lupus Surviovor and works with Purple Buttafly Services, Inc. She works full time and currently is a member of Junior League of North Little Rock and serves as the President of the North Little Rock NAACP Unit # 6026 and partners with various organizations fighting for the social justice and civil rights for all people which includes the right to vote. One vote matters. One vote counts! In the words of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “If you haven’t lived a life of service, you haven’t lived.”

Steven is humbly shaping positive change within Orange County, California’s criminal justice system. In seven short years as founder and executive director of Santa Ana-based Project Kinship, the incubator which was blessed by Father Greg Boyle and Homeboys Industries as their sister entity, is reshaping lives impacted by incarceration, gangs, violence and trauma. Steven’s steady work to successfully re-integrate individuals back into the workforce, schools and community is heralded locally and beyond. His dedication to breaking cycles of incarceration, gang membership, and community violence stems from lived experience and over 15 years of working with traumatized and abandoned youth. Steven is highly regarded for his human rights work in the field of Forensic Social Work where he led multi-disciplinary teams to identify early childhood traumas on high-profile death penalty cases. He is sought out for his expertise on understanding root causes of violence and has facilitated trainings on the state and federal levels of the criminal justice system. Steven additionally serves as an adjunct professor with the University of Southern California’s School of Social Work — where he obtained his master’s degree in Social Work. Steven’s unending heart for the abandoned and disenfranchised is the driving force to stand with those on the margins to create hope and equality for the future.

Marrah has always been community focused. Every year she holds a volunteering birthday party where she coordinates a volunteering activity instead of a birthday party for herself. For her birthday in 2020, she celebrated by participating in the MLK Day of Service and creating art for a local school. As uncertain times continued in the wake of the pandemic, Marrah wanted to lend a helping hand to her community on a more consistent bases. One way was to help residents gain access to the distribution of food. In the past, she was a casual volunteer at local food banks. She would prepare food during large pushes like holidays or natural disasters. As COVID hit, Marrah wanted to do more, so when she received an email from the organization because they were looking for healthy individuals that could volunteer on regular basis through the pandemic, she was ready to step in. She found herself having a great impact on the community and its clients by volunteering before her work hours. They delivered the meals to her, she loaded them into her car and use her Costco wagon to deliver daily meals. In addition to that, she worked with two animal rescues to house and rehome animals during COVID. In all she fostered 9 dogs in 2020 and got them to forever homes. Lastly she for her birthday this year, she coordinated a card writing campaign to thank the front line workers. They were able to create 5,600 message in 32 locations around the country.

Canine CellMates, founded by Susan Jacobs-Meadows in 2013, pairs incarcerated men with rescue dogs, both of whom have been rejected by society. Susan experienced her own son’s incarceration, and her passion for Canine CellMates and positive change for incarcerated men was born. Canine CellMates strives to break the cycle of incarceration, utilizing the magical healing power of dogs. Since 2013, Susan has spent hundreds of hours in an advocacy position for the men in the program, working with public defenders, social workers, re-entry and substance abuse programs and inside the court room. Since its launch in 2013, over 400 men and 150 shelter dogs have participated in this unique program. CCM recently took over a building, which is now their central location, and enhances the opportunities for volunteering, training programs, animal care and providing life-changing restoration. On September 20, Canine CellMates launched Beyond the Bars, one of the very first diversion programs in the country that centers around rescue dogs. As an advocate for rescue dogs and incarcerated men, Susan’s vision is to allow men to return to their communities as better parents to the children, better children to their parents, and better citizens in their community, while saving shelter dogs that will go to loving homes.

As a child, Calliope demonstrated great empathy for those around her, comforting her friends when they were in despair. As she matured, she was deeply troubled by the inequities in underserved communities, something she witnessed frequently in her native NYC. Her first philanthropic pursuit began as an idea to help moms at a local homeless shelter by mobilizing her classmates to donate lightly worn bags with new toiletries as a Mother’s Day treat. The satisfaction she derived motivated her to organize a book drive to create a children’s library. She also gathered friends to teach a STEM program to underserved children. In high school, Calliope championed the Siena House by creating a pitch with a team of classmates for Bank of NY which resulted in a $10k grant for the shelter. When the pandemic hit, Calliope became most concerned about childhood food insecurity. She set out to address this debilitating problem in the poverty-stricken South Bronx. By designing and selling phone grips, Calliope, as chief fundraiser, and a friend, raised over $35K, secured 500 backpacks and 1,000 masks for the 360 students of PS 130. As a result, they were named the Inaugural Student Ambassadors for Blessings in a Backpack. In addition to developing BIAB’s first student Mission Initiative, their responsibilities included creating a video tutorial and tool kit to engage students around the country to positively impact their communities: “Start small, BUT START!” Their mission continues.

Ramu has started a Rice ATM (Any Time Meal) during the COVID-19 lockdown in India to feed the migrant workers returning to their home states, as their employers have not offered any help. He felt the compassion seeing the dire plight of the thousands of migrant workers, without even one square meal a day, with pregnant women and small kids in the group, and were walking back as the government stopped all public transportation to stop the virus spread. He started this dry ration Rice ATM, which is open 24/7, so that the migrant laborers can stop by and get the kit containing rice, pulses and oil, so that they can cook their food and go on their journey. He used up his own salary, savings and retirement fund, with his family’s support. He helped the daily wage workers get work again, to be self reliant in the quickest time, as the economy recovered from pandemic slump. He provided 715 families jobs through his livelihood projects and has helped about 50,000 families now.

At Battered Boys and Men, Gary offers many different programs, like a trauma recovery program that provides quality services and resources for young boys and men ages 14 through 24 who have been victims of sexual or physical abuse, assault, human trafficking, school or workplace bullying or other crimes that can potentially cause long-term trauma. Gary’s company’s purpose is to aid individuals who have experienced these intentional acts of trauma in rebuilding, restoring and strengthening their sense of safety by ending the cycle of violence. They provide access to trauma-informed care by acknowledging how past and present traumatic experiences and stress may impact the men and boys that they are serving. Their team is specially trained to support the unique needs of survivors and their families to foster hope for a better future. Overall, they ensure that their participants are more effective in obtaining and seeking resources and have a better quality of life and psychological well-being.

Mike is a math teacher and school theatre director in Crawfordsville, IN. Along with his busy schedule, he also volunteers at a local community theatre and helps deliver at a local food pantry. The COVID-19 pandemic was very difficult for the performing arts spaces to keep their doors open since they were unable to perform safely for a live audience. Mike was able to quickly adapt to the change of virtual theatre by using his editing and streaming knowledge. Students were able to safely perform onstage for concerts and shows and he was able to assist in all virtual community theatre production. Mike would like to thank the many other volunteers that helped keep the performing arts alive in his community and his wife, Katie, for all she does for the community as well. He would like to remind everyone to continue to support their local performing arts, especially during these difficult times.

Suresh is a dedicated environmentalist, social change maker and recipient of many awards from governments and districts like Haritha Mitra (greenery friend), Handloom Promotor, Best Social Activist in District, for the decades of work he did to bring the pride back to his community, of living in harmony with the earth, like ancestors from millennia did. He gives talks at various IT firms doing Corporate Social Responsibility events. He lives a simple life wearing only hand-loomed clothes and gifts others hand-loomed bags and plants to motivate everyone to reduce plastic usage and support our Mother Earth and future generations. He personally recognizes hundreds of “silent environmentalists”, who unknowingly are also helping the Mother Earth, like plastic bottle recyclers and bicycle riders. He created channels for government and donors to work well and he helped create 100 bedded hospitals, give PPEs, oximeters and oxygen concentrators to the COVID warriors and the sick when government hospitals were full. His life is a life-size example and his message to each of us is, “Environmental protection is not a mere slogan, but an essential life style for each and every one of us.”

Hannah had an incredible and unique opportunity to complete a year of service as an AmeriCorps VISTA at The University of Central Arkansas, in a community that she was already a member of. Throughout her year, she got to organize and participate in days of service at local nonprofits that she was previously involved in, and develop and support programming for the most vulnerable student populations. This work is incredibly meaningful for her as she was once one of those students at UCA. Although her service experience was only a year-long commitment, she was able to return to UCA full time after her VISTA year. Hannah is now an academic advisor, recruiter, and graduate student in the College Student Personnel Administration program, and she plans to spend her career supporting students. She is so thankful for the relationships and connections she made through her service year and looks forward to continuing to serve the community that she cares about so deeply.

Kristine’s motto is “We rise by lifting others” and over the past 21 years in her Dallas community she’s leaned in to that philosophy. Her servant leadership has ranged from chairing the Community Development Commission which oversees the city’s public services, emergency funding and affordable housing funding from HUD grants to the creation of Service Saturdays with the Schwope’s which connects volunteers to opportunities planting the seed of philanthropy for youth early. Her dedication to serving others comes from her parents and her faith which has helped her to focus on supporting basic needs — prevention of homelessness, preservation of families and dignity for all. One specific example is her eight years of leadership with Dallas Furniture Bank, which provides basic furnishings for those transitioning to stability. When a family is able to move from shelter or couch surfing to their own space it’s a celebration but moving into an empty apartment and sleeping on pool rafts or bags of clothing doesn’t translate to “home.” On countless occasions for thousands, Kristine was able to help furnish warm beds for children reunited with siblings, kitchen tables for couples to gather around and desks for homework. She is an advocate for those needing a hand up and will continue to build bridges to connect people’s hearts and minds.

Pete has been a Federal Emergency Management Agency instructor since 1999. In 2002 and again in 2010 he was recertified by FEMA in CERT (Community Emergency Response Team). He created the first CERT team in Battery Park City opposite Ground Zero in 2002. Subsequently, he created Port Richmond CERT, Brooklyn South CERT and New York One CERT. He also trained police officers and corrections in CERT in St. Vincent and the Grenadinesl Barbados, St Lucia and Haiti. He recently retired from the New York City Police Department after 25 years of service as an evidence specialist. He served 13 years as the adjutant to the 88th Brigade New York State Guard. During 9/11, he ran the Logistics Section at Pier 92 for the NYC Office of Emergency Management, and was the only official on duty when Flight 587 crashed into Belle Harbor Queens. During Hurricane Sandy in 2012-2013, he was in the US Army, Charlie Company Commander at Citi-Field for 39 NYS Army National Guard and State Guard soldiers. For the last 53 years he has been the commanding officer of Patrol Borough Brooklyn South Auxiliary Police Command. He was also the Brooklyn Borough CERT Coordinator for NYC Emergency Management for all 18 CERT teams. In 2016 he created a new version of a Disaster Preparedness course strictly for residential managers and their staff running the high rise buildings. He brings a wealth of experience in the law enforcement, military and emergency management fields.

Evelyn enjoys volunteering and helping others. She spent the spring building a little free library and keeps it stocked with free books for all ages. She spent her summer teaching STEM workshops for children, volunteering at a soccer camp and helping children with art, nature and healthy snack making. She assisted with teen support groups for anxiety as well as babysitter trainings. She created two kindness rock gardens and volunteered at the waterfront cleanup. She is a shining light and an inspiration to many. She always finds a way to help improve her community and help the people around her. Evelyn spent every school morning for the last two years leading the school in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance from her principal’s office. She was a teaching assistant for an adult computer education course, and a student teacher for younger violin students. She finds the good in every day and everyone. She shows how one person can make a difference. She learns to put her own anxieties aside in difficult times and achieve her goals. Even with juvenile arthritis she finds hope in each new day and is resilient and courageous throughout her educational, personal and community-related pursuits. She is a true champion, an amazing leader and a beautiful voice. She leaves a smile and a spark of kindness wherever she goes, and people always remember her and her impact.

Shyam is a veteran expert civil engineer in irrigation, who lead many major lift and tunnel irrigation projects construction, to help poor farmers get water. He’s the recipient of many awards for his dedicated sincere services, like Engineer-in-Excellence, Best District Officer, Rain Water Harvesting Appreciation and Eminent Personality (Engineer). After retirement, he adopted villages and continued his passion to help poor farmers to achieve a secure future. He has helped 1,000 plus villages complete multiple instances of rain water harvesting through contour trenching projects to more increase water security and ground water table and flood control for farmers. He’s focused on crops sustainability with growing millets and creating demand for the grains. He’s mentored many farmers and engineers, and above all he has gained love and affection from all farmers by helping them with education, wealth, social life and lifestyle to achieve a stress-free life while still being a farmer. The motto he believes in and lives by he has inscribed over his office chamber: If wealth is lost, nothing is lost If health is lost, something is lost If character is lost, everything is lost. Shyam is a humble soul with a body of work of a lifetime helping the poorest of the poor farmers get water resources and help to achieve sustainable agriculture.

As a young girl Keishalee’s mother instilled the value of community in her and her. She taught Keishalee that the strength of the fabric that sustains a community lies in the education of its people. Her involvement in the community began with assisting her mother as she led a group of Cub Scouts many years ago. Community involvement has led Keishalee to become a Parent Ambassador for Edward Brooke Charter School in Roslindale, MA. The purpose of the group is to engage in building skills, knowledge and confidence of parents as they advocate for their children’s education. Having had the opportunity to achieve a graduate-level education, she deems it her responsibility to share her life experiences and lessons learned with students to help inform their future decision making. She has found that sharing her educational and professional experiences with students gives them the opportunity to hear firsthand from someone how the college experience can influence a career-path. At BCBSMA the collaboration of people from different backgrounds drives the brand in the community. Keishalee believes that when people of different communities and cultures come together it brings diversity of thought and inclusion. Co-leading the Black Professional Network Employee Resource Group for BCBSMA has allowed her to actively participate and engage in meetings as well as encourage others to participate and share their thoughts on issues and offer solutions that are essential to further this community-led organization.

Marjorie drives the work of making local investment easier for the public and nonprofits. She accomplishes this through the work of SHARE Omaha and the national network of SHARE communities. SHARE offers simple ways to make donations, volunteer, shop for needed items and attend events to raise nonprofit support and service. The work helps people find their fit in bettering where they live, in the way they choose. Under her leadership, SHARE Omaha provided a rallying cry of virtual volunteerism locally for COVID-19 response as well as a central point of information to impact those devastated by 2019’s historic flooding in Nebraska and eastern Iowa. Marjorie has dedicated her career and life to community causes. As a marketer, fund developer, grant maker, consultant or executive, her experience with the arts, college access, public health and nonprofit capacity building led her to her current role. She currently chairs the governor-appointed ServeNebraska State Commission for volunteer and national service. The strength and leadership Marjorie brings to the commission has enabled the passing of two legislative bills to grow AmeriCorps service and engagement across Nebraska. She grounds herself in the belief that there is enough: enough good to help others, enough resources to solve problems, and enough kindness to surmount our challenges. This belief in abundance helps Marjorie empower others to strive for big goals and big impact.

Bill has been engaged in service personally since the 1960’s and professionally since the early 1970’s, when he launched his career in the higher education arena. He’s had the privilege of engaging college students in service and civic engagement initiatives for 44 years. His depth and breadth of service were expanded in 1994 when the then Corporation for National and Community Service launched AmeriCorps, and for 26 years Ihe’s had the honor of working in some capacity with national service, from serving as the founder of his institution’s AmeriCorps program to serving in leadership roles with the MD Commission on Service and Volunteerism. Bill remembers clearly waiting for hours in hot Washington, D.C., in September of 1994 to celebrate the launch of AmeriCorps at the White House, when that same day a light plane crashed onto the south lawn. The President and Mrs. Clinton eventually came out to greet them with a smile, a handshake and an iced tea! Bill’s journey with national service continues today.

Benjamin is a retired Army COL and a founder of the Southern Tier Veterans Support Group, a NY corp. (Apr 2012) and 501(c)(3) public charity. In 2013 Ben through MOAA submitted STVSG as a candidate to be the first Community Blueprint in NY. Early on, the blueprint received POL’s highest star award in all eight impact areas and it continues the same eight years later. STVSG’s mission is “to provide a network of resources for our local veterans, service members and their families. It strives to educate the community on their needs and partner with other organizations so we can offer a broad range of services and financial assistance to address unmet needs, enhancing their physical, emotional and economic well-being.” STVSG acts as a coordinating agency with other service providers, including 70+ affiliated organizations; educates the community about veteran needs and encourage businesses to hire veterans. STVSG helps veterans and their families in 10 counties in NY & PA. In 2020 it helped hundreds of veterans and their families. All eight board members from four services are volunteers. Low expenses equal return of 90 cents on the dollar back to veterans in the 10 counties.

During the pandemic, ISMEA held a community contest to thank local communities at the frontlines. As a result, Nadir, along with 10 friends, distributed meals twice a day to more than 50 families. This increased to three meals a day in May 2020. They distributed more than 500 food packets to 50 families in need in Shakih’s community. Nadir and his friends were recognized by the Daily India News for their efforts.

Tracy embodies what the SMART Hub is all about. By engaging all members, she pushes to move the community forward in the face of its challenges such as poverty, drug abuse and abandonment. Tracy is the organizer for the Historic Westside Village Festival and works with several other community groups such as a local community garden and MUST ministries for over 12 years. Also, she has renovated neighborhood apartments for affordable housing, and has an eight person team that logged over 300 hours volunteer hours in 2019.

Jeff’s motto is “give, serve, love.” After 30 years with UPS, Jeff has reinvested both time and resources to philanthropic activities that are close to home – assisting those with Down’s Syndrome and childhood cancer. He works closely with the Lighthouse Family Retreat, which offers restorative vacations for families who may be struggling financial due to medical expenses.

Guided by his faith, Mark loves to help others, offering marriage counseling and assisting people suffering from addiction through the Coach and Counsel Organization find employment. He uses past personal failures or regrettable behaviors to challenge others to re-evaluate their decisions and refresh their relationship with God.

As Kimberly grew up, she learned a valuable lesson. “I was raised understanding that some have and some have not,” she says. “Some can speak and some cannot. So those that have more should help and those can speak should speak for those that cannot.” This is exactly what she has done, volunteering 796 hours in 2020 by providing unhoused people with food, clothing, tents and warmers. Meanwhile, she takes care of animals by providing food, coats, booties and medical care. She also fosters animals that have been abused, abandoned or born on the street.

Vladimir volunteered more than 125 hours to create and donate masks for hospitals in Mexico to help slow the spread of COVID-19. Vladimir’s sister, who lives with their elderly mother, influenced him to create the masks as a way to help protect the most vulnerable.

After Harry fled the chaotic Liberian civil war in 2003, he worked to help his community through various organizations. He founded his own nonprofit that provides critical medical supplies to Liberian citizens.

Jamie lives by a servant leadership style in regards to his community and UPS. When he lived in Eastern Africa for four months in 2014, he and his wife adopted two orphans. He has made several trips to that an orphanage in Uganda to volunteer. Also, he is on the board of directors for Amina Ministries in Uganda that has a mission to partner with indigenous church pastors and leaders to empower, educate and equip people of all ages. Additionally, Jamie serves Welcome Home Ministries-Africa, where his boys were adopted, to support awareness and fundraising. He’s served as a campaign chair for West Michigan United Way and has been a part of the African American BRG since 2017.

Victor started volunteering about five years ago in Spain because to him, having the ability to help people is worth more than anything. He created a nonprofit organization for runners to raise money for patients through events and challenges. Once the pandemic started, his organization created events to collect food and hygiene products for a food bank and toys for children at Christmas. He also helped manufacture and distribute PPE. He volunteers 25 hours per month and earned grants for the purchase of touch screens for the Special Education School and Equine therapy sessions.

Jitender volunteers at various organizations with a commitment to service. He has been volunteering at Calgary International Airport for seven years, using his language skills to help passengers who need it. When COVID-19 took hold, Jitender took initiative to start a new program within the UPS Calgary facility to collect empty bottles and cans to recycle. He donates the collected funds to support Boys & Girls Club of Airdrie, an organization that provides free support and programs to help prepare at-risk youth for the future.

Laurie has devoted time to work with the elderly and several youth programs. She says her lifelong passion is to help the underserved youth develop life skills, build confidence and pursue their dreams to a brighter future. Laurie’s upbringing as a teen mom fueled her passion for helping the youth. She remembered how her family, church and community helped make a difference in her life. Since then, her personal motto has been “make a difference in someone’s life.” Laurie hosts an annual shoe drive called Soles4Souls and for the last two years, she‘s been part of the executive committee, branch treasurer and co-chair for ACT-SO for the NAACP. Throughout the pandemic she’s contributed to these organizations through virtual meetings.

For more than five years, Greg’s “Operation Ramp It Up” has been building aluminum wheelchair ramps for wounded or disabled veterans and first responders. His goal is to build a ramp in each state across the U.S. He works with BRGs in different business units and districts across the U.S. to find volunteers and those in need.

Scarlet Hope is a faith-based outreach program focused on women in the adult entertainment industry who are at risk of being victims of human trafficking. This program reaches out to women at strip clubs, on the street, in illegal massage parlors and in jail, through a text outreach program to address the trauma they have suffered. For the past three years, Dana has worked to build relationships with these women, validating their worth and helping them learn life skills and find jobs. She’s also involved with fundraising efforts and event coordination.

From delivering food to the community to helping develop a local community center, Terry’s volunteer work resume is long and varied. Terry has committed over 40 hours of his time and organized a group of 12 volunteers to help clean a local community center after meeting a local basketball coach who also provides life coaching. Terry has led the charge, organizing volunteer events for the Active Heroes Retreat since 2016 and the Veterans Memorial park of Kentucky since 2018.

Throughout the pandemic, Kevin has recorded over 800 volunteer hours. Growing up he didn’t fully understand why his parents pushed so hard for him to volunteer, but then he learned it’s about seeing beyond yourself and being able to see yourself in someone else’s shoes. Kevin’s service mantra is, “The seed will only grow when it is planted in something bigger than itself.” Some of the organizations that benefit from Kevin’s time and talent are Boys & Girls Club, Houston Children’s Charity, GHFC Greater Houston Frontiers Club, Houston Food Bank, Houston Literacy Foundation and Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc.

Hai has worked as a feeder driver at the Dongguan Changping center since 2010 and brings a strong sense of responsibility to his role. He has also volunteered over 2,000 hours in his community. “I think we should be thankful to have the ability to help others. To be a volunteer is my honor, but I feel more it is my responsibility.” He has served free nutritious breakfasts for the elderly and disabled for more than five years, works to clean parks and other public spaces and regularly donates blood.

As a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity, Dennis is regularly given opportunities to serve in his local community. From participating in the Susan G. Komen “Walk for the Cure” to delivering food boxes to deserving families, and serving in the church choir to helping to package toys for tots, there is a calling that continues to provide a beacon of light towards those who are in need. Dennis has been given so many wonderful opportunities as a result of others selflessly giving of themselves for his benefit, that he thinks it only proper to do the same for others.

Chebra’s passion is fashion, making everyone feel beautiful. She was able to come from homelessness to being a successful designer to the stars. Chebra loves helping women build their self esteem and find their passion. She has done volunteer work for a variety of charities that support youth, abused women and children and the unhoused. She’s received numerous awards for her community work, including the Call to Service Award from the President of the United States and other dignitaries. Chebra has also done fashion shows for many 501(c)(3) nonprofits, including Society for Female Entrepreneurs.