They are among 100 youth volunteers from across the country honored.
Six Indian American teenagers were among winners of the 23rd annual Prudential Spirit of Community Awards in Washington, DC, on Monday.
The Indian Americans honored were Aditya Sidapara, who is a resident of Phoenix, AZ; Sivani Arvapalli, of South Windsor, CT; Vani Sharma, Fishers, IN; Anjali Chadha, Louisville, KY; Praneeth Alla, Exton, PA; and Shrey Pothini, 14, of Savage, MN.
In all, 100 top youth volunteers from across the country were honored at the event.
Each recipient received $1,000 in cash prize and personal congratulations from Olympic gold medalist and World Cup champion Lindsey Vonn.
The award ceremony and gala dinner reception was held the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.
Sidapara, 18, a senior at BASIS Scottsdale, co-founded an educational initiative that is teaching computer coding to students living in four refugee camps in East Africa, aiming to lift them out of poverty and help meet the worldwide demand for skilled software engineers.
“Millions of high-potential refugees live in atrociously impoverished communities, hindered from realizing their dreams through technology,” said Aditya. “Software engineering offers a dignified path for uplifting refugees from cyclical poverty and inspiring the next generation of regional and global innovators.”
Arvapalli, 13, an eighth-grader at Timothy Edwards Middle School, was nominated by the Indian Valley Family YMCA. He volunteers with a group that has raised nearly $94,000 for child-focused charities by conducting talent shows and organizing benefit dinners and entertainment events.
“I believe volunteering is important because it shapes people into better humans and makes them more selfless,” said Arvapalli. “My decision was to make a change in our world, whether it is the smallest or biggest thing.”
Sharma, 11, a sixth-grader at Sand Creek Intermediate School, has been visiting the Ronald McDonald House at Riley’s Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis regularly for several years to prepare meals and entertain the families of hospitalized children. She also conducted a collection drive to provide books and toys to the kids at the facility.
“Every day, volunteers would prepare and serve two meals for the families,” Sharma said. “After my sister was discharged, I felt like it was my turn to give back.”
Chadha, 15, a junior at duPont Manual High School, founded a nonprofit organization to educate and empower minority high school girls in the world of technology, and began her mission last summer by offering 10 girls a seven-week program of classroom training and real-world experience.
“They were simply too fearful to even give STEM or technology fields a chance,” she said. Chadha was programming computers and building websites by the time she was 9 years old.
Praneeth Alla, 16, a junior at The Episcopal Academy, spent more than 1,500 hours creating a product for a nonprofit benefiting rural villages in India, improving its ability to collect and manage donations, publicize projects and track income and expenditures. He also founded a network of youth clubs to raise money to improve the education of children in India.
When Alla was a child, his father told him stories about growing up poor in the countryside of India. “He recounted the difficulties in receiving a quality education, the insufficient health conditions, and the limited amount of opportunities,” said Alla.
Pothini is an eighth-grader at Eagle Ridge Middle School. A community organizer, he has hosted a city-wide “day of service” for three years in a row. “I wanted children and families in my city to be exposed to the needs in our community and learn how to make a difference while having fun,” said Pothini said.
The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program is sponsored by Prudential Financial in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP).
Youth volunteers in grades 5-12 were invited to apply for 2018 Prudential Spirit of Community Awards last fall through schools, Girl Scout councils, county 4-H organizations, American Red Cross chapters, YMCAs and affiliates of Points of Light’s HandsOn Network. More than 29,000 middle level and high school students nationwide participated in this year’s program.
The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program was created in 1995 to identify and recognize young people for outstanding volunteer service – and, in so doing, inspire others to volunteer, too. In the past 23 years, the program has honored more than 120,000 young volunteers at the local, state and national level.
(Update: a previous version failed to identify one of the winners.)