Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Molly Budhiraja. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Molly, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
I am a 16 year old High School Student. My freshman year of high school was an eye-opener and was the beginning of My Wish For My Community. As I drove back from downtown Phoenix, I was shocked by the large homeless population unprotected during the cold winters of December 2020. I felt the need to do something and I organized a large blanket and warm clothing drive. By posting on social media, using neighborhood apps, and talking to friends and family, I was able to collect 22 large moving boxes worth of blankets, comforters, and warm clothing. I also created 200 hygiene kits through my personal savings. My story was featured by a local news channel inspiring many kids to reach out about how they can get involved in directly servicing their community.
Video link : https://www.fox10phoenix.com/video/898880
I realized that there are so many kids that want to get involved in making a change in their community, but did not know how.
There are many barriers to volunteering for kids and teens due to age restrictions. I realized that there is a gap in the ease to connect youth to volunteer opportunities in their local community. Additionally, I wanted to streamline the process of tracking volunteer hours, all in one place and easily available with one click, reducing the chance of misplaced log books, lost or forgotten and miscalculated hours. I immediately got to work and started coding a platform to connect the youth interested in getting involved with the local opportunities in their community.
I was self-taught and learned from youtube tutorials, websites, and books. I then submitted my app to the Congressional App Challenge, receiving Congressional Recognition and second place Award. Through encouragement from the Congresswoman, community members, and my friends and family, I realized how much potential My Wish For My Community had for making a positive impact on the volunteers and the local communities.
Today, My Wish for My Community is successfully connecting youth to local volunteer opportunities, while cultivating leadership, empathy, and youth activism.
Molly, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
In 2021, I developed an app, called “My Wish for my Community”, which received Congressional Recognition and award. This app offered a platform for connecting the youth to their community, raising awareness about homelessness and encouraging youth volunteers to spread positivity and hope through various volunteer projects.
In 2022, recognizing the huge need for service in the community,I founded a non-profit organization, called “My Wish for my Community” and we volunteered thousands of precious hours towards uplifting our communities through various service projects such as :
– Organized Hydration and heat relief drive, (in summer) and shoe and warm clothing drive, for individuals experiencing homelessness.
– Created thoughtful cards and letters for the elderly at Assisted Living Facilities.
– Hosted holiday card making events for troops, in collaboration with the City of Phoenix, Luke Air Force Base, KSLX Radio Station’s 10,000 for Troops Project.
– Decorated holiday boxes for deployed troops, in collaboration with Youth for Troops. Assisted with making hand-woven plastic mats for homeless veterans. Prepared personal care kits prepared for individuals experiencing homelessness and veterans.
– Crafted empathy cards for patients in the hospitals. Painted compassion rocks, for families facing serious and terminal illnesses, in collaboration with Hospice of the Valley.
My journey about this app and creation of a non- profit organization was recently featured on news.
Video Link : https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/arizona-teenager-creates-app-to-help-teens-find-volunteer-opportunities.amp
“My Wish for My Community” received the official “President’s Volunteer Service Award Certification” in 2022. Volunteering in the community has helped several young children and teenagers to develop a sense of purpose. As they learnt first-hand, some of the needs in the community, such as homelessness, foster children in need of love, food and some personal care products or about patients experiencing terminal illnesses, they experienced deep empathy, compassion and gratitude.
Most school students started volunteering to capture volunteer hours for school logs, however, they started to build a community with other volunteers, and participated each time with great zeal in various projects. The parents have been highly supportive of their children participating in meaningful projects to serve the community as they can choose a project of their choice and skill level, serving in-person or from the comfort of their homes, resulting in significant reduction of wasteful screen time.
I spend time getting to know the volunteers, recognizing the skills and availability of each volunteer, matching them with remote or in-person opportunities, such as making thoughtful cards, painting heartfelt rocks, collecting and sorting donations, packing food items for food banks, creating a musical show for patients and their families, etc.
My Wish for My Community has been successfully connecting youth to local volunteer opportunities, while cultivating leadership, empathy, and youth activism.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I faced several challenges as I worked on my vision of setting up a non profit organization. Most of the paperwork required an adult to take responsibility for the non profit org.
I interviewed several professionals and narrowed my search for the most appropriate Board members who were aligned with my vision of community service.
I did not have initial funds and had to work hard to raise funds with selling my artwork, help tutoring little children and baby sitting jobs.
I had to research at every stage how to proceed and needed help with coding. I taught myself coding to initiate development of an app and it took me several months to learn essentials of python, html and Java languages for simple coding tasks.
I observed other volunteer organizations that were open to all ages and created my app specifically for kids and teens as they were facing the same challenges as myself. I have offered support to the volunteers by matching them with their age appropriate activity, opportunities that inspire them and gave them purpose. Some little ones want to help, but are unable to join in-person as it added more to the parents plates for bringing them to these activities, so we developed a list of remote opportunities that the children and families can complete at home and drop off the items.
We received a lot of donations when we asked our neighbors and friends, but did not know how to organize and sort them. Then we learnt from this that we will be specifically asking for shoes or warm clothing and essential items so that our volunteers can sort and label them for use at Homeless shelters.
We are now able to guide new volunteers on how to organize donation drives and drop off items of need for individuals experiencing homelessness.
Without adequate funds, we had to be innovative about buying supplies in bulk and on sale, and carefully use art supplies, card stock and paper for creating holiday cards and thoughtful cards for patients, elderly and deployed troops.
I was seeking new opportunities for our volunteers and were invite dby the City of Phoenix to participate in the KSLX Radio Station 100.7’s 10,000 for Troops project where they collect 10,000 cards for deployed troops. Our volunteers really enjoyed crafting beautiful cards for troops from the comfort of their homes.
I had to work on all of these projects along with my full time school and other extra curricular activities. It is definitely a fulfilling experience to see the final product.
We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.
My initial challenge was to learn how to code an app. I had heard of the Congressional App Challenge and researched more into that. I found that Congresswoman Debbie Lesko participated in the Congressional App Challenge and my school was in her Congressional District #8 of Arizona. I learned from youtube tutorials, websites, and books. I then submitted my app to the Congressional App Challenge, receiving Congressional Recognition and second place Award, in 2021, through several months of hard work in understanding and learning coding.
As we were planning a toy drive for the holidays for children in foster care homes. I thought of another app idea based on the need for toys and developed “Project Toy Exchange”. I submitted “Project Toy Exchange” for the 2022, Congressional App Challenge in AZ District # 8 and received Congressional Recognition and first place award. My ability to code an app definitely had improved by this time.
My next challenge was to gather information about the needs for communities and how to engage teens and younger children. I called hospitals, local senior living facilities, nursing homes, hospice offices, the City of Phoenix and some shelters in Phoenix Downtown asking for a wish list and current needs. I then created a list of opportunities and discussed these with the Board members and Youth Ambassadors for their input. Once everyone approved, we delegated our student volunteers for these opportunities.
In 2022 and 2023, “My Wish for my Community” collaborated with multiple organizations and groups such as the City of Phoenix, City of Glendale, Luke Air Force Base, KSLX Radio Station 100.7, “10,000 for Troops Project”, Andre House, Central AZ Homeless Shelter, Youth for Troops, Hospice of the Valley, Honor Health hospitals, Feed my Starving Children, Hands- on Project, St. Mary’s Food Bank, Various Assisted Living Facilities and Senior homes.
Another major challenge was the need for funds. I planned a Holiday Volunteer Appreciation Event in December of 2022, where I recognized our volunteers and appreciated their efforts. We asked for donations and were able to raise monies towards art supplies such as printer paper, paint brushes, markers, glitter, rock painting kits and for organizing volunteer events. I have also applied for a small grant from the “Helping Kids Go Places” initiative, and am seeking other funding for our volunteer activities.
In building our final product, a Volunteer platform for teens and youth, I learnt several lessons from the time how to set up a non- profit organization, how to operate and advertise as well as how to fund.
We have now grown into a larger volunteer platform and we have delegated website and IT to a professional website developer, planning and strategies to Board Members and Ambassadors and advertising to social media platforms.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.mywishformycommunity.com
- Instagram: @mywishformycommunity
- Facebook: @mywishformycommunity
- Linkedin: Molly Budhiraja
Image Credits
Photo Credit : Photo Gallery : “My Wish for My Community”