Samuel’s main mission is to raise funds and awareness for the rare epidermoid brain tumor his dad and others around the world are fighting. Currently, the only treatment for these tumors is brain surgery. His campaign, Save the Brains, began when he was seven with a traveling fresh-squeezed lemonade stand. Over time, Samuel’s stand evolved, and he now leads a team of his peers in various fundraising efforts. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he held an online art auction, which raised over $2,000 while featuring local artists. Currently, Samuel is in talks to put together his first ice hockey fundraiser. Samuel has also published a poetry book called “Freedom Zone,” which includes illustrations from his peers. Half of the proceeds from each book sale go to his Save the Brains campaign. Samuel’s goal is to raise enough funds through his Save the Brains campaign to get research that helps every person—young and old—battling these destructive tumors. He is the single-largest donor to the Epidermoid Brain Tumor Society with over $20,000 raised thus far.

Sidnee spends her time volunteering over 125 hours each year in support of numerous nonprofits. Her biggest service efforts lie with Jamie’s Dream Team and Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC). For Jamie’s Dream Team, Sidnee helps families going through a crisis. She shops, sorts, packs, and delivers Christmas gifts for them. She further helps these individuals when it is time for their dreams to come true by assisting them at the airport and providing them with snacks and assistance before their trips. For the Ronald McDonald House (the House), Sidnee spends over 75 hours each year buying food, making meals, serving, and cleaning up. Her goal is to never see the same person twice because then she knows they got better. She also collects toys and other items for the kids at the House. Her current fundraiser for RMHC is to raise enough funds to donate 10 American Girl® dolls to the Giving Room, where siblings and children of the House can go in and pick a toy to help them cope while they go through trying times.

After talking about homelessness with a teacher at her elementary school, they discovered that the items most needed by unsheltered people who are homeless and found that socks are the number one item requested at homeless shelters. Audrey immediately began working on her first collection drive and Socks With A Mission (SWAM) was born! Since then, Audrey has conducted numerous sock drives and fundraisers. Most recently, Audrey partnered with the Bethel Park Police Department to hold a drive that collected over 3,200 pairs of socks! She encourages other children to get involved by holding drives of their own through the Socks With A Mission Certificate Program. Since SWAM’s inception, Audrey has raised thousands of dollars and has distributed approximately 20,000 pairs of socks to those experiencing homelessness in Pittsburgh and surrounding areas, including Erie, PA, Youngstown, OH, and Wheeling, WV. SWAM distributes socks to dozens of organizations, which have included Light of Life, Family Links, The Blue Kangaroo, Street Moms, Shepard’s Heart, and Light in My City. Audrey’s mission is to have each person do their part in preserving the health and dignity of those experiencing homelessness in the greater Pittsburgh area by providing them with new, clean, quality socks.

Ava played an integral role in the success of the Peters Township Middle School Dance-a-Thon. It was a school-wide effort to raise funds in support of the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Pittsburgh and Morgantown (RMHC). As one of the event’s registered dancers, Ava worked tirelessly to collect as many pledges from the community as possible. She went door-to-door through the neighborhoods of Peters Township, asking the community to pledge support to the cause until the last possible moment. On the date of the event, Ava arrived home from school and immediately went out to visit one last neighborhood in the rain, bringing in an additional $300 in collected pledges by the event’s start that evening. Ava was the school’s second-highest performing dancer and pledge earner. Her individual pledges will allow RMHC to fund 15 families to stay one night at RMHC, stock the House’s pantry for over five weeks, provide a three-night stay for a family each month, and pay for a family to stay near their child for 60 days.

Abigail takes serving her community and elders to heart. Her service projects began with cutting off 10 inches of her hair to donate to Children With Hair Loss. Since then, she has organized numerous collection drives for organizations including the Veterans Leadership Program, Beverly’s Birthdays, Pittsburgh Mercy’s Operation Safety Net, Operation Gratitude, and Best of the Batch Foundation’s Batch A Toys holiday toy drive. She also collects items for individual families in need. Items collected include cash donations, household goods, socks, toys, and personal hygiene products. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, a community member of Abigail’s lost her home to a fire. Abigail helped to collect the needed items for the single mother and her three children. Abigail collected drop-offs on her front porch and sanitized every donation before she dropped the items off at the hotel where the family was temporarily staying following the fire.

Skyler played an integral role in the success of the Peters Township Middle School Dance-a-Thon. It was a school-wide effort to raise funds in support of the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Pittsburgh and Morgantown (RMHC). As one of the event’s registered dancers, Skyler participated in various fundraising events and collected pledge money from family, friends, and local businesses. Skyler’s leadership and compassion to serve others helped her to become the school’s top-performing dancer and pledge earner. Her individual pledges allow RMHC to fund 19 families to stay one night at RMHC, stock the house’s pantry for 45 days, provide two three-night stays for a family each month, and pay for a family to stay near their child for 60 days.

Sawyer’s technical abilities and interests were immediately recognized by the administration, teachers, and technology coach at Propel Braddock Hills Middle School (BHMS). Because of his interest and skill set in technology, the Assistant Principal sought out Sawyer’s expertise in developing an idea of creating a school store. The idea was for teachers to have the ability to reward students with points for demonstrating school PRIDE (Perseverance, Respect, Integrity, Dependability, and Engagement) in the classroom, hallways, and other locations around the school building. Students would then be able to use their awarded points at the school store. Sawyer immediately ran with the idea and began researching how to build a technology platform that could function as the school store. Because many of the platforms Sawyer researched cost several hundred dollars and he had no budget, Sawyer compiled what he liked from each site and created his own version! Sawyer did all of the backend research, building, and implementation of the school store. He completed the backend work on the site, took inventory, photographed all of the available products, wrote detailed descriptions, and researched and developed a “cart” function leading to student check-out. The school store has evolved with Sawyer’s leadership. It has transformed and reinforced a positive school culture at BHMS. Students look forward to receiving their rewards and redeeming them at the school store, and they work hard to earn more points each day.

Lillian founded her own nonprofit organization called KindnessU: Lillian’s Leaders of Tomorrow. KindnessU is dedicated to addressing community needs through fundraising for those who need some extra help during difficult times and inspiring youth to be the best versions of themselves by giving back to their communities through volunteering. Throughout her organization, Lillian and others volunteer their time packing lunches for over 200 kids a day in the summer, running concession stands for sporting events, helping with storytime at the local library, packing food boxes for Five Loaves Ministry, hosting a nationally known 80s-themed Mom Prom, and committing time to various other organizations that are struggling to find volunteers. The funds raised by KindnessU have been given to many different individuals, including several breast cancer patients, a pediatric heart patient, a college baseball player who suffered a stroke, the family of a young victim of suicide, as well as scholarships for community-minded high-school seniors. KindnessU also adopts 50 senior citizens and several families at Christmas time to ensure they have special Christmas miracles. Lillian is a member of the Barnesville Community Foundation, which is the umbrella organization that houses her nonprofit organization.

Nick and his brother began giving away free lemonade and asking others to pass on an act of kindness to honor a fallen soldier. Feeling the positive impact their efforts had on others, Nick wanted to give more kids the chance to experience that feeling. This was the beginning of Bridges Kids Club. Bridges Kids Club has grown to over 300 local members (ages 5 to 21) and their families and has completed projects all year to support many local children and organizations in Western Pennsylvania. Nick is an administrator of the annual event, Operation Santa, a Christmas carnival for over 3,500 military families. The main feature of the event is a gift exchange between military and civilian kids. Nick spends countless hours planning, moving equipment, staging the event, managing volunteers, and ensuring everything goes smoothly on event day. He is integral to the management of the event that has a $200,000 annual budget and requires months of countless volunteer hours of work around his school and sports schedule. In addition, he manages and assists in all annual Bridges Kids Club projects.

Sophia was diagnosed with leukemia in 2018 at the age of 13, then later with a myelodysplastic syndrome, which required a stem-cell transplant. Receiving treatments for these blood cancers at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh (CHP) gave her the intimate knowledge of what it was like being immuno-suppressed and having to wear a mask much of the time to help aid in the prevention of spreading germs and viruses—and to keep herself safe. The hospital had disposable masks, but she felt many kids didn’t want to wear them because of the sanitary look and feel of them.  Sophia set about creating reusable, washable masks with cartoon and character patterns for other children who must wear masks (well before COVID-19 mask restrictions). Sophia felt that if the masks had more personality, the kids would feel like the public and kids their own age at school would start to see beyond their illness and begin to see them for who they are—kids being kids. She contacted local seamstresses and designed a pattern that was easy to sew. She enlisted sewing groups at local churches and recruited local fabric shops for donated fabrics. Sophia worked with the CHP’s Child Life Coordinator to develop protocols for making sure the masks were sanitary and safely distributed. Sophia designed business cards, social-media platforms, and a website, Miracle Masks, to get her message and designs out to the public. When the COVID-19 pandemic surfaced, a COVID-19 tab was added to her website as an additional resource for the community. In addition to making masks for CHP, Sophia made masks for frontline workers and adults with suppressed immune systems. She also penned an op-ed for a local newspaper about the importance of wearing a mask and was featured on a local news station talking about her project.