Over a dozen Indian American kids across the United States were recognized as State Honorees for their outstanding volunteer work as part of the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards. All were named in the high school age group.

Following are those recognized:

Andover, Massachusetts, resident Pratheek Kuimanda; in Arizona, Anika Attaluri of Chandler; in California, Shaivi Shah of Rancho Santa Margarita; Gitanjali Rao of Lone Tree, Colorado; Divita Taduvayi of Bear, Delaware; Kruthik Ravikanti of Alpharetta, Georgia; West Lafayette, Indiana, resident Siya Goel; in Kentucky, Shreyas Kar of Louisville; Pooja Veerareddy of Shreveport, Louisiana;  Maansi Nema, of Novi, Michigan; in Minnesota, Ankitha Kumar of Inver Grove; Shruti Gautam of Columbia, Missouri; in Nebraska, Omaha’s Mahika Kanchanam; Edison, New Jersey’s Manan Shah; in Oregon, Suraj Kulkarni of Corvallis; and Srishti Sankaran of Bellevue, Washington.

After the COVID-19 pandemic began, Kuimanda, 18, saw a video of a nurse crying because a shortage of protective equipment at her hospital had forced her to quit for fear of endangering her newborn and other family members. A senior at Andover High School, he formed a team of friends to produce more than 2,200 face shields using 3D printers, and delivered them to healthcare facilities and nursing homes in several states and Puerto Rico.

Attaluri, 17, a senior at Hamilton High School, played a leadership role in a national grassroots initiative that registered more than 35,000 young people to vote in the 2020 election.

She is a passionate advocate for civic engagement in young people and people of color. She also knew how intimidating the voting process can be for first-time voters, and that the COVID-19 pandemic was presenting challenges for the registration and voting process. So when she was asked to play a leadership role in a program promoting youth voter registration, she was “ecstatic” to take on a leadership role, her bio notes.

Shaivi Shah, 16, a junior at Tesoro High School, responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by assembling and donating more than 4,600 sanitation kits to 21 different homeless shelters, food pantries and rescue missions across southern California, and inspired similar efforts in other parts of the country, her bio said.

After hearing a speech by Gov. Gavin Newsom about the vulnerability of people experiencing homelessness, Shah decided to create sanitation kits for them, it said.

She began by going to a local store and purchasing enough hand soap, lotion, hand sanitizer and face masks to make 50 kits, which she took to a local shelter.

At that point she realized that she would have to raise money if her project was to continue, so she set up a GoFundMe and reached out to the media to publicize her efforts, the release said.

It took a while, but finally her project caught the eye of a reporter and after a story appeared, donations skyrocketed. So far she has raised more than $19,000 from nearly 500 donors. In addition, volunteers in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Colorado and Florida have adopted her project in order to serve the homeless in their communities, it adds.

Rao, 15, a sophomore at STEM School Highlands Ranch, has reached more than 30,000 students around the world, encouraging younger generations to think creatively about confronting the world’s big challenges by leading online workshops where she shares the unique problem-solving methodology she created, the bio said.

Rao, a scientist whose creations include devices to detect lead in water and diagnose opioid addiction, also has pioneered technology to discourage cyber bullying. While working on these projects, she came up with her own process for guiding an idea from concept to reality.

She started sharing this process with elementary students at her school, and received such positive feedback from the kids, parents and teachers that she realized she could take it to students beyond her school “to inspire them to create their own creative solutions to world problems,” she said.

Taduvayi, 17, a senior at Mot Charter School, launched a nonprofit last year that aims to narrow the gender gap in STEM careers by introducing elementary school girls to fundamental computer science concepts.

“I have been interested in computer science ever since I walked the model-rocket-lined halls of my middle school STEM basement,” Taduvayi said. “However, it took me until my junior year in high school before I was comfortable in the computer science field, having faced many setbacks in my self-confidence.”

Ravikanti, 17, a senior at Alpharetta High School, co-founded a nonprofit organization to help other young people start, fund and execute their own service projects. Ravikanti said he and a fellow high school student realized that many young people aren’t particularly interested in typical types of volunteering, but have a desire to launch their own service projects, the bio notes.

However, they often lack the necessary resources, such as the time and money it takes to obtain official nonprofit status. To address this problem, the two friends created “Georgia Youth Leaders,” a 501(c)3 organization that provides information and guidance to young social entrepreneurs, allows them to benefit from nonprofit status, helps them procure funding, and supports them in other ways.

Goel, 16, a member of Girl Scouts of Central Indiana and a junior at West Lafayette Jr./Sr. High School, created an art studio and conducted an art workshop at a local assisted-living facility to benefit residents with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, and then built a website to share the therapeutic effects of art with 40 other senior facilities throughout Indiana and Illinois.

Since she was 4 years old, Goel has watched her grandmother struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. While researching the disease, she learned that “art can improve the social, emotional and cognitive state of patients,” she said.

Kar, 16, a junior at duPont Manual High School, has developed software applications designed to benefit charitable organizations, reduce school violence and conserve water, and has used his experience to create a nonprofit organization that helps students around the world take on similar community-minded technology projects, the bio says.

As an active volunteer in his community, Kar developed a platform that connects donors and charitable organizations with people affected by disasters, so that the most-needed kinds of aid can be delivered to the right people at the right time, it adds.

Veerareddy, 18, a senior at Caddo Magnet High School, co-founded a nonprofit organization that has provided under-funded hospitals in the Indian state of Telangana with critical health-related supplies since 2017.

For many years, Veerareddy’s grandmother had to travel between Telangana and the United States to get treatment for renal cancer. So Veerareddy, with help from her father and sister, created a charitable organization called the Vijaya Project, named after and in honor of her grandmother, it said.

Nema, 17, who is a member of Girl Scouts of Southeastern Michigan and a senior at Novi High School, began hosting STEM nights in 2017 to interest elementary-school girls in science, math and technology, and then created a nonprofit “STEM Without Boundaries” to provide advice and resources to other high school students who want to host similar events in their own communities.

There are now 15 chapters of her organization in 10 states and three other countries.

Kumar, 17, a senior at Eagan High School, started a free online tutoring service “ConneXions” after the COVID-19 pandemic halted her in-person tutoring sessions, a service that has now expanded to encompass 17 volunteer tutors and more than 300 students across the United States and overseas.

Gautam, 17, a senior at Rock Bridge Sr. High School, arranged to place free feminine hygiene products in the bathrooms of every high school in her school district, and worked on legislation to require that these products be readily available in high schools throughout Missouri.

Kanchanam, a 15-year-old sophomore at Millard North High School, helped protect healthcare workers in her community from COVID-19 by providing more than 4,000 pieces of personal protective equipment to five Omaha-area hospitals, and raised $1,400 for a local food bank by selling hand-sewn cloth face masks.

Manan Shah, 17, a senior at John P. Stevens High School, started a nonprofit virtual tutoring service with a friend in April 2020 that has recruited more than 350 high school students in 15 chapters to help kids in grades K-8 adapt to online classrooms once their school buildings closed due to COVID-19.

Since he began, Shah’s program has conducted more than 4,000 hours of virtual tutoring for 550 kids in locations as far away as El Salvador and Pakistan.

Kulkarni, 17, a senior at Corvallis High School, had to get used to school mates joking about his name, making fun of his lunch food, and humiliating him in other ways because of his background. Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, he was prompted to create a website where young people of diverse backgrounds can share their experiences, perspectives, and culture with one another, along with online conferences that have involved young people from more than 13 countries.

Sankaran, 17, a sophomore at Interlake High School, has been working to help feed the hungry in her community since 2012 and last year co-founded a nonprofit organization Food4Thought Foundation that raises funds and food donations for local and international groups that fight hunger.

As co-president of the foundation, Sankaran helps raise money, conduct food drives and maintain a website to support a variety of organizations in the U.S. and India that serve the hungry. Her foundation has provided food bundles to people affected by storms in India, packed thousands of meals for distribution to food banks, cooked and served meals at homeless shelters, organized food drives, and donated money for other aid projects.

As State Honorees, each individual in the group will receive a $2,500 scholarship, a silver medallion and an invitation to the program’s virtual national recognition celebration in April, where 10 of the 102 State Honorees will be named America’s top youth volunteers of the year.

Those 10 National Honorees will earn an additional $5,000 scholarship, a gold medallion, a crystal trophy for their nominating organization and a $5,000 grant for a nonprofit charitable organization of their choice.

The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, conducted annually by Prudential Financial in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals, honors students in grades 5-12 for making meaningful contributions to their communities through volunteer service.

Several Distinguished Finalists and runners-up were also selected in each state, and all qualifying applicants received President’s Volunteer Service Awards.

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