Nonprofits at Naperville Central

Junior Hannah Leong receives a proclamation from Naperville City Council during Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage month. (Photo courtesy of Hannah Leong)

Asian Impact Movement

The Asian Impact Movement is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that works to foster unity within the Asian community through volunteerism and civic engagement. It was co-founded by junior Hannah Leong and North junior Emilie Fann in 2024. Leong recently launched the Dear Mom and Dad initiative as part of the organization, which seeks to educate Asian-Americans about cancer and convince them to receive screenings.

“A big idea when we started to found [the Asian Impact Movement] was that we wanted there to be freedom for us to take on projects that were not completely related to our mission statement,” Leong said. “If we saw something we wanted to change in our community we should be able to have the freedom to take some resources and change it. For me, this was the Dear Mom and Dad initiative.”
A student at Kennedy Jr. High School takes a CodeBytes test during their coding bootcamp on Oct. 17. (Photo courtesy of Anay Apte)

CodeBytes

CodeBytes is a regional coding competition founded in the summer of 2023 by the computing clubs at Naperville Central and Neuqua Valley. The organization includes a wide variety of coding topics in its competition, including data science, web development, botting and those found in national tournaments. It also hosted a coding bootcamp at Kennedy Jr. High School that taught middle school students the basics of Python programming at weekly meetings from Sept. 12 to Oct. 17, led by senior Anay Apte.

“When I brought this over to the middle schoolers at Kennedy, it’s delivering on that promise of the computer science camp that Kennedy had always wanted,” said Apte, a co-founder and Director of CodeBytes. “I’m giving the opportunity for students to learn about computer science and take it into their careers.”
Customers walk the aisles of the Naperville Children’s Business Fair in August 2023. (Photo courtesy of Hiba Hasan)

Naperville Children’s Business Fair

Founded in 2020 by Athena Chen (then a student at Central), the Naperville Children’s Business Fair hosted 400 “kidpreneurs” (aged 5-14) and 250 businesses across its first three years. The organization also runs summer workshops teaching kids about marketing, finance and budgeting. The fair is now led by a committee of District 203 high school students, including junior Hiba Hasan.

“I’ve always been interested in business, and when I was younger I didn’t have this opportunity of a children’s business fair near me, but looking back I know I would have loved it because I always used to make slime and [I] always wanted to start my own business,” said Hasan, who is co-president of the fair. “Seeing kids able to bring this passion to life and to a broader scale — to the entire neighborhood community — is just an awesome full-circle moment.”
Central seniors Isaac Merz (left), Hunter Ernst (middle) and Kevin Hsu (right) give a presentation during one of Community Anchor’s sponsored initiatives. (Photo courtesy of Andrew Lazovski)

Community Anchor NFP

Founded in February 2023 by senior Andrew Lazovski, Community Anchor NFP is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provides “fiscal sponsorship” to other youth-led organizations who lack the resources to apply for 501(c)(3) status themselves, allowing them to receive tax-exempt donations by proxy. The nonprofit recently sponsored Operation Illuminate Ukraine (which is also led by Lazovski), fundraising $35,000 and providing 17 tons of humanitarian aid to Ukraine’s Kherson region.

“Making many nonprofits and registering every single one as a nonprofit would be very expensive and wouldn’t make sense,” Lazovski said. “In Community Anchor, we use [our] 501(c)(3) status and there is essentially a legal way to allow organizations to share the tax exemption.”
Students build raised beds to support community gardening projects with the Chicago Green Initiative. (photo courtesy of Andrew Lazovski)

Chicago Green Initiative

The latest of senior Andrew Lazovski’s philanthropic initiatives, the Chicago Green Initiative aims to alleviate food deserts in Chicago through community gardens and fresh produce. It’s fiscally sponsored by Community Anchor NFP to receive tax-deductible donations from the parent 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

“With grocery stores closing and fresh produce increasingly out of reach for many, we’re converting community gardens into food production hubs that supply healthy, local produce directly to underserved neighborhoods,” Lazovski wrote in a statement to the Central Times. “These gardens are becoming essential sources of nutrition and community resilience, bringing fresh food to areas where it’s desperately needed.”
Then-sophomores Lilly Jia (far left) and Audrey Cheng (left) instruct competitors at Clover Math’s elementary and middle school math competition, hosted at Central on April 26. (Photo courtesy of Arthur Xu)

Clover Math

In April 2023, Clover Math hosted a free math competition at Central for 150 local elementary and junior high school students. The organization, which plans on applying for 501(c)(3) status, was co-founded by four District 203 seniors to create more opportunities for competitive mathematics at a young age.

“There’s not a lot of opportunities to participate in these math competitions,” said senior Arthur Xu, co-president and co-founder of Clover Math. “We wanted to inspire and motivate younger kids to do math.”

The organization currently has two juniors in leadership positions, which Xu plans on giving his role as co-president of after he graduates.

“We’re hoping to make it an annual event, like a tradition at Naperville Central,” Xu said. “Even after we graduate, hopefully younger kids will take over.”
A student receives academic support from The Merry Tutor on Saturday, Nov. 16 at Nichols Library in Downtown Naperville. (Marina Micic)

The Merry Tutor

Founded in 2013 by Jane Boettcher, The Merry Tutor has provided over 1,400 tutoring sessions for K-12 students over the past decade at the Alive Center, Nichols Library, Naperville Central and other locations. Its Naperville chapter is led by co-presidents Cherise Lee from North and Bavya Chowdavarapu from Central.

“You can’t really learn without a very supportive and encouraging environment,” Chowdavarapu said. “I’m happy to be able to be a part of an organization whose goal is to provide that support and encouragement. Being able to enjoy a subject that you didn’t before because you were struggling in it might help somebody realize that they like the subject a lot more than they thought they did.”

Currently, more than 100 high school students across Naperville and Aurora volunteer with The Merry Tutor.
Students analyze forensics evidence during STEM Quest’s hands-on criminology camp in June 2024. (Photo courtesy of Anushka Gulati)

STEM Quest

Juniors Anushka Gulati and Riya Dondapati first came up with the idea for a nonprofit offering engaging STEM activities in January 2024, and immediately began planning a forensics-based criminology summer camp servicing students from both Naperville and Lisle. The organization hopes to “stand out from the rest of the nonprofits” by focusing on hands-on learning opportunities that educate the next generation.

“We want them to actually be able to do hands-on activities and experience what STEM is like,” Gulati said. “Instead of just giving them a worksheet saying that a murder took place on Saturday night, instead, we made that whole crime scene for them outside so they could visualize and see and find the evidence to actually understand what they’re looking for.”

At the time of the camp, the organization was named SunnySkies. It was only when they received 501(c)(3) status in October that they changed to STEM Quest.
Central senior Andrew Lazovski poses for a photo in an Operation Illuminate Ukraine sweatshirt. Lazovski traveled to Ukraine as part of the initiative, distributing 17 tons of humanitarian aid. (Photo courtesy of Andrew Lazovski)

Operation Illuminate Ukraine

Operation Illuminate Ukraine, one of three nonprofit initiatives founded by senior Andrew Lazovski, has provided 17 tons of humanitarian aid to the Kherson region in Ukraine. Lazovski traveled to Ukraine in October to distribute the aid in partnership with Ukraine-based nongovernmental organization Steel Ants. It’s fiscally sponsored by Community Anchor NFP, allowing it to receive $35,000 in tax-deductible donations from the parent 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

“I did humanitarian work in the beginning to create this idea where war is not the best solution,” Lazovski said. “These humanitarian missions, we have to do them because we’re the only ones that are available to help these people who are the most vulnerable.”

The initiative focused on Ukraine’s Kherson region, where a breach in the Kakhovka Dam resulted in large flooding in June 2023.

Central Times

Central Times