A Walt Whitman High School junior delivered more than 15,000 pounds of food to students at a Montgomery County elementary school during the 2024–2025 school year. She's one of three Whitman juniors whose nonprofit and volunteer work directly serves Bethesda-area families.

Aarna Gundeti co-founded Helping Hands for Humanity with her family in 2023. The nonprofit focuses on combating poverty through education, a mission Gundeti traces to her parents' experience growing up poor in India before immigrating to the United States.

"My parents had to struggle a lot," Gundeti told The Black and White, Whitman's student newspaper. "I want to give back to others because I know my parents wouldn't be where they are without school."

Through the nonprofit's Nutrition Powers Education initiative, Gundeti and a volunteer team of middle and high school students delivered the food to Meadow Hall Elementary School. For the 2025–2026 school year, she aims to donate roughly 25,000 pounds.

I’ve been shown that to be educated is to be privileged,” Gundeti said. “I want everyone to have that opportunity.”

The Montgomery Serves Award honored Gundeti as Youth Volunteer of the Year in June 2026, according to Florence Jewell, host of the Montgomery County television show "Make a Difference." Jewell said Gundeti was nominated by Lara France and recognized for her dedication to service and community impact.

Tennis lessons with a purpose

Classmate Suhani Verma founded Rallying Together, a nonprofit that offers tennis lessons to kids in Bethesda using volunteer high school coaches. All proceeds go to the UTR Scholars, Scores Foundation and the USTA Foundation.

“Programs are so expensive and tennis is only filtered to a certain group,” Verma said. “With our services, we are giving that opportunity to hundreds and thousands of kids in America to play tennis and find the same love for tennis we all have as coaches.”

Rallying Together has raised $3,000 total. Verma donated $1,000 to Glen Burnie High School's tennis team through UTR Scholars and Scores. Matthew Bugenhagen, the school's assistant tennis coach, said the gift quintupled the funds in the team's account and will pay for ball carts to expand team capacity.

Verma paid $700 and waited months to secure tax-exempt status for the organization.

80 hours at Greentree Shelter

Zoey Rees volunteers five hours a week at the National Center for Children and Families' Greentree Shelter in Bethesda, which serves 115 children and families experiencing homelessness. She began volunteering there in middle school, when she and her family renovated the children's playroom.

“I’ve lived a pretty privileged and comfortable life,” Rees said. “Seeing that other people have it much harder than I do, I wanted to do my part.”

For her Girl Scouts Gold Award, Rees independently renovated the shelter's teen room, spending more than 80 hours planning, fundraising and building. She raised $2,800 to fund the project.

“It did give me a good amount of life skills,” Rees said. “It also made me realize that I want to get into things like social work or other topics that are in touch with homelessness, like subsidized housing and housing solutions for people.”

William Whitlow, NCCF's volunteer coordinator at Greentree, said Rees is "consistently welcoming, positive and hardworking" and that her impact on the children and families the shelter serves "is truly immeasurable."

Rees said the experience pointed her toward a career in social work or housing solutions.

What's next

All three students are entering their senior year at Whitman in fall 2026. Gundeti's 25,000-pound food goal for the current school year would bring Helping Hands for Humanity's two-year total to roughly 40,000 pounds delivered to MCPS students.