When Grace Xiao was in fifth grade, she heard about the Super Joey Foundation, which helps children with cancer who stay at Ronald McDonald Houses during their treatments to be near the hospital.
“That sounds like an amazing cause. I’d love to help,” Xiao said of what she immediately thought upon learning about the cause. The rising senior at Holton-Arms School in Bethesda did just that and has been helping out ever since.
She originally went classroom to classroom at Lakewood Elementary School in Rockville, asking her classmates to donate gifts for the children. She placed boxes by the school’s library and watched them fill up. “By the end of the week, the boxes were overflowing,” Xiao said.
When she dropped off the gifts, she told the staff that she had fun and wanted to do more. They suggested she serve dinner to the children and their families. She soon returned with four friends and two parents and, not only served dinner, but also led arts and crafts projects and even showed one girl how to play the piano.
That girl asked if Xiao would return and continue teaching her, and that’s exactly what she did.
But then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and she couldn’t go back in person. Instead, Xiao started a GoFundMe site to help supply canned goods to the Ronald McDonald House pantry. She also received a grant from Costco and donations from area restaurants.
Finally, the world reopened, and she and her friends returned to in-person volunteering, sometimes bringing 10 to 15 others along with her.
“I live by the fact that I think volunteering helps not only the people you are serving, but also the volunteers themselves,” she said. “You get a certain fulfillment seeing the families smile.”
It continues to amaze Xiao how positive family members can be when faced with scary medical diagnoses.
“I leave with the best impressions,” she said. “I think I would not be the same person without volunteering.”
She has learned that people just want to be treated normally. Xiao said she also learned how to directly interact with people she doesn’t know and how to manage volunteers.
She would love to encourage everyone to volunteer and suggested people go to the Instagram account she established for her organization, We United Foundation.
“Our mission is to connect teens with meaningful volunteer opportunities, inspire a culture of giving back, and nurture leadership skills by fostering impactful community engagement,” Xiao explained on the website.
We United Foundation has raised $18,000 so far and has recruited more than 60 volunteers from 11 Montgomery County schools.
Besides volunteering, Xiao plays tennis and is on her school’s Model United Nations club. She is also president of its AI Innovation Club.
Xiao plans to major in statistics when she goes to college. She formed a love for applying data to learn about people after conducting a survey to see what motivates people to volunteer. She was surprised to learn that people who experience challenges are more likely to volunteer than others.
One of her friends suffers from depression but rarely misses a week volunteering. She entertains some of the children through face painting, Xiao said.
While she doesn’t yet know what college she will be attending, Xiao is sure her time there will include volunteering.
