The Award is the country’s largest youth recognition program based solely on volunteer service
Indian American students Amal Bhatnagar and Meghana Reddy were named among 10 youth volunteers selected for the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards’ 2017 national honorees.
The program selects a group of young Americans for national recognition based on their outstanding achievements in community service each year. The Award is the country’s largest youth recognition program based solely on volunteer service.
Amal Bhatnagar, 18, of Duluth, Ga., is a senior at Northview High School. He created a student organization that has provided more than a thousand first-aid kits to people in the US and overseas who lack access to basic healthcare.
Once, while volunteering at local hospitals in summer, he saw patients whose innocuous bruises had progressed into infected lacerations because they did not have basic first-aid supplies.
“I realized that a bandage, such a trivial healthcare supply, was so effective and yet so elusive for underserved, powerless populations,” Amal Bhatnagar said in a Prudential news release.
Amal’s nonprofit, called ‘First Aid for All’, has attracted hundreds of middle and high school students from schools across Georgia and Alabama, who raise funds, sort and package medical supplies, make public presentations, and participate in a variety of health-related volunteer projects. Amal estimates that his initiative has improved access to healthcare for more than 1,100 people so far.
Meghana Reddy, 18, of La Mesa, Calif., is a senior at Francis Parker School in San Diego. She uses 3D printing technology to produce artificial hands for children and adults in several countries who cannot afford commercial prostheses.
On a family trip to India in 2014, Meghana visited an orphanage and was shocked to see two young children there with missing limbs.
“I was moved to do something to help them,” she said in the news release. Upon returning home, she did some research online and learned how 3D printers can be used to create inexpensive objects, including prostheses.
Meghana established a nonprofit organization called ‘Limbs of Love,’ set up a website to seek donations assembled an advisory board of doctors and academicians, and recruited students from several high schools to help.
It takes about 20 hours for her to ‘print’ a hand in pieces, which are then assembled with screws and cords to enable opening and closing movements. Each hand costs about $30 to make, far less than the thousands of dollars a commercial prosthesis can cost. More than 100 hands have been delivered so far. She has started clubs in several schools to engage more students in her mission.
Created in 1995 by Prudential Financial and the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards honors middle level and high school students for outstanding service to other at the local, state and national level.
All the 102 Prudential Spirit of Community Awards State Honorees take an all expense-paid trip with a parent or guardian to Washington, D.C., for four days of national recognition events. During the trip, 10 of the 102 State Honorees are named America’s top youth volunteers of the year at a formal luncheon at the Andrew W. Mellon auditorium.
This year’s ceremony was on May 8, and the honorees shared their experiences and ideas with one another.
National Honorees receive an additional award of $5,000, an engraved gold medallion, a crystal trophy for their schools or nominating organizations, and a $5,000 grant from The Prudential Foundation for a nonprofit charitable organization of their choice.
Thus far, it has recognized more than 120,000 young people who’ve made a difference – and inspired countless others to consider how they might contribute to their communities.