When she was ten years old, Chelsea began Chelsea’s Charity to collect donated art supplies and send them to foster care programs and homeless shelters throughout the United States, India and Haiti. When COVID affected her community, Chelsea continued her mission and knew that providing art supplies to children was more important than ever to maintain children’s social-emotional and mental health development during the pandemic.  Chelsea said she, “wanted kids going through hard things to have a different way to express themselves.”  Chelsea engages children from around the country in virtual art supply packing parties for distribution to communities in need, as well as creating art videos for kids. Chelsea and her volunteers have prepared and delivered thousands of art kits during the pandemic. Chelsea tells each person she meets, “It doesn’t matter how old or young, you can make an impact!”

Thirteen-year-old Liem began the GivingHope Project to provide masks, hand sanitizer, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to the Greater Seattle homeless population. Although he has served this vulnerable population since he was six years old, Liem saw that when COVID-19 affected that community, people were in great need of not only masks and sanitizer, but also food, as many of the food banks in the area were unable to distribute food at the inception of COVID.  Liem personally spent over forty hours/week during Summer 2020 and raised over 125,000 in-kind donations to ensure the needs of the homeless population were met. Liem continues to serve Seattle’s homeless and his example of giving has ignited his community.  Now, over 200 volunteers assist Liem in providing masks, bagged lunches, and many other essential items to Seattle’s homeless.  The youngest volunteer that Liem inspired is just four years old.  As Liem states, “Caring is giving hope.”

Only days after COVID-19 impacted his community and his junior year began virtually, Daniel Goldberg founded ZoomersToBoomers, a free grocery delivery service for the elderly and immunocompromised. As he realized the scope of the need, he quickly began recruiting friends and teammates to keep up with the ever-increasing requests. Days were spent in grocery lines and evenings were filled speaking with those in need of assistance. As ZoomersToBoomers grew in Santa Barbara, Daniel began calling friends across the country and asking them to join the mission to help those who could not leave their homes during COVID in their own communities. He created a local volunteer management team to streamline the process and help guide other volunteer teens around the country as they also ensured that at-risk groups in their communities could stay home and safe. In just four months, Daniel and his team of peer volunteers scaled ZoomersToBoomers from a city-wide initiative to an international organization serving 36 cities. To date, 1,000+ volunteers with ZoomersToBoomers have formed relationships with over ten thousand at-risk members of their communities by working to keep the elderly and immunocompromised population safe.

In 2020, Madeline Fugate transformed her seventh-grade history project into a national platform for healing. Madeline’s goal was to help people heal from the loss of a friend or family member to COVID-19 by keeping their memories alive. Inspired by the AIDS memorial quilt from the 1980s, Madeline created the COVID Memorial Quilt project, a living memorial to all those who have died from COVID. Madeline accepts and creates remembrance squares from around the world that tell the stories and share the memories of individuals affected by COVID-19, and with the help of volunteers, she creates the constantly expanding COVID Memorial Quilt.  Panels of the COVID Memorial Quilt are displayed in city halls, museums, hospitals, churches, schools, and traveling exhibitions around the United States. Madeline continues to accept memorial squares and is actively working with national policy makers to create a COVID Remembrance Day.  As Madeline states, “they’re not numbers, they’re people who died and they deserve to be remembered.”

When COVID-19 affected his community and his sixth-grade class went virtual, Michael Chen knew he needed to help.  Many of his friends and neighbors were healthcare and essential workers and he learned of their bruised and indented faces after having worn masks the entire day, every day. Michael saw a need and decided to create mask buckles to allow workers to adjust the length of their masks to be more comfortable.  Michael used his 3D printer around the clock to donate buckles in his community and around the country.  After the initial prototype, he began printing "super hero" buckles to convey his feelings about the recipients. Michael has printed and delivered mask buckles to hospitals, schools, and police stations throughout the United States and Germany. And, Michael is already working on his next project to create an anti-fog fix for healthcare and essential workers who wear glasses with their masks. As Michael states, “I learned that one doesn't have to be a healthcare worker to help out in the medical field. I would tell other young people to not write off a situation just because at first glance it seems like something too big and out of our control. Just because one wasn't a doctor or own a mask making factory, doesn't mean one couldn't help find solutions to problems, no matter how small.”