SNOHOMISH COUNTY--Our passion for the community and helping others around us started as young kids when we observed how young girls in India were working at home instead of going to school because they had to financially support their families. We were disturbed and appalled and wanted to make a change.
Later, when we came back home to Seattle and researched underserved minorities and youth homeless shelters, we learned there were several inequities. Thus in 2016, we formed the, a nonprofit "Joys of Giving." So far, we've fundraised $20,000, volunteered over 1,000 hours and impacted lives of more than 1,000 youth.
Joys of Giving has a unique vision of fighting youth hunger and bringing educational equity. We imagine a world in which every individual has equal access to education and technology and does not go to bed hungry. We organize fundraisers and volunteers who give their skills and time with outreach activities and workshops. We believe education and having access to a meal should be a basic right and not a privilege.
During the unprecedented pandemic year of 2021, we helped fundraise close to $1,500 for various causes and nonprofits around our local community, especially related to educational equity and youth hunger. With the pandemic, we were heartbroken that many of our fellow peers in school did not have access to meals with lack of in-person learning and needed access to mental health education programs.
If kids do not know where their next meal will come from, how can they focus on education? We partnered with our school district foundation, created fundraisers to donate items to local food banks, baked and cooked meals to serve at homeless shelter drop-off locations and made sandwich projects for homeless contributing to serving over 100 youth meals in multiple nonprofits. We also decided to bring our love for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) to help with educational equity and breaking gender barriers.
In 2021, we conducted free, virtual workshops related to coding skills, art, and the science of baking, impacting more than just youth. We continue to create curriculum and spread the joy of learning across the globe! Our other passion project around reducing the gender gap in STEM motivates us to also be instructors and volunteers teaching and mentoring girls to help break the unconscious bias and perceptions in the society around STEM fields.
Together we have spent more than 300 hours tutoring and mentoring individuals served by several nonprofit organizations that help underserved youth and minorities in STEM topics. The most important things that continue to inspire us with volunteer work are patience, consistency, empathy, compassion and the fulfilling joy when I see the smiles on the kid's faces. We want to bring our passion for service, STEM education, drive to fight youth hunger and leave this world a better place! We believe no child should lack education and go hungry to bed!
