Priya Jayakumar is a Multiplying Good One in a Million Award recipient. She’s among the millions of people who are putting others first and using service as a solution to the problems we're facing. Read her story below!
One in a Million Award recipient: Priya Jayakumar
Where she’s multiplying good: Bear, DE
How she’s multiplying good: She is One in a Million. Priya spends many hours helping her community. Some of her activities include being a Charity Crossing volunteer, volunteering at Nemours/AI Dupont Hospital for Children, and doing various volunteer activities through her school, Caravel Academy.
This is Priya's 5th year being a Charity Crossing (CC) volunteer. As a CC volunteer she serves the homeless and those in need of a meal, socks, gloves and clothing during their weekly Sunday serves in Wilmington, DE and Elkton, MD. She has also been a part of their annual autism awareness walk. Three years ago, she created a poster for this walk to help promote autism awareness. Her poster was selected to be turned into a signage and installed at Glasgow Park's High 5 Park to help promote autism awareness to the users of this park. In addition, she has been a part of the Halloween Candy Drive and the Socks for the Homeless Day initiative. Three years ago, when the Socks for the Homeless Day initiative began, with the help of her school's Jefferson Awards, Priya helped pass a resolution in Kent County Council to recognize February 14th as socks for the Homeless Day. That same year and the year after, with the help of her school's Jefferson Awards she organized a socks drive at Caravel. This past year, she partnered with her school's Chick-Fil-A leadership academy and collected over 1,000 pairs of socks for the homeless and less fortunate. Recently, this past June, Priya organized a relief drive to help the victims of a cyclone and COVID-19 in West Bengal, India. Priya and her team of about 30 youth volunteers collected 172 boxes of material, that has approximately 12,000 items and an estimated value of $42,000. In addition to these activities, Priya plays a major role in drafting emails and responding to the various organizations and individuals that Charity Crossing works with and designing images and promotional flyers.
This is Priya's 2nd year being a volunteer for Nemours/A.I. DuPont Hospital for Children. Last summer she helped with patient escort and in the psychology department. This summer she helps with the COVID-19 screening of patients and families. She is very glad to be able to help the hospital in some way during this difficult time.
In her school, Priya is an avid member of Jefferson Awards and Relay for Life at her school. Last year, she was a part of her school's Leukemia & Lymphoma Society(LLS) Student of the Year team in which she raised over $4,000 for LLS. As a result of her leadership, we now have not only more students volunteering but also some teachers.
Priya is very thankful to have been given these opportunities to help her community. She believes volunteering is the most important thing anyone can do (whether it is setting up a volunteer stand, helping your elderly neighbor with mowing the lawn, or volunteer at a soup kitchen) because it is important to help others who cannot help themselves. She believes that it is amazing how one small deed can touch so many hearts. Through Priya's community service she has helped to uplift the community around us that led her to earn Governor’s Youth Volunteer Service Award(2020) and Presidential Volunteer Service Awards(2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019). She finds volunteering fun and loves meeting knew people and learning new skills through her volunteering.
