In January of 2024, the Greater Buffalo Branch partnered up with Journey’s End Refugee Services and the Network of Religious Communities Youth Alliance to bring holiday cheer to refugees in Buffalo. By running a gift donation drive throughout the months of December and January and then filling and wrapping gift boxes, members of the Greater […]

On January 13th, 2024, six members of the AYLUS Morrisville Branch volunteered at the Brown Bag Ministry in Apex. We made sandwiches for local low-income families. In addition, we also assembled food bags with sandwiches, snacks, and sweets. This is a great way to give back to the community. Volunteers: Rebecca Yao (2 hours) Xuanjin […]

On 1/14, Julia Chen played piano for 30 minutes during lunchtime at the HarborChase Assisted Living Center in Southwest OKC for entertainment for the senior citizens. Julia Chen (30 min performance)

Julia Chen played piano for 30 minutes during lunchtime at the HarborChase Assisted Living Center in Southwest OKC for entertainment for the senior citizens. Julia Chen (30 min performance)

On the 7th of January, 2024, from 10:20am to 11:20 am, some AYLUS volunteers gathered at the NY Conservatory of Music and Art to learn and gain motivation for future pathways from Wendy Li, a member of the US Civil Service Court for New York. She explained law structure and the usage of law in […]

1/7/24 AYLUS Dix Hills Volunteers at Long Island Chinese School in assisting education   Volunteers welcome back students to LISOC after winter break and make sure the learning environment stays sharp. They did various tasks to not only assist students but the teachers as well.   This event included grading classwork/homework. Using volunteers’ knowledge to […]

The AYLUS Dix Hills Branch volunteers at Valley Stream State Park to help cut down bamboo. Volunteers used various tools to swiftly remove bamboo, forming an assembly line of sorts to quickly transport the bamboo over the river. The bamboo is a real problem for the area, not only has it been a real burden […]

Reported by Andrew Zhou                 In cooperation with the Libraries of Love, the AYLUS San Diego Committee kicked off the 2023-2024 Table Tennis Clinic to raise funds for the Libraries of Love. The Table Tennis Clinic is a sports program for children, and highly qualified volunteers will be […]

Members of AYLUS Basking Ridge attended the Somerset Hills YMCA volunteer open house, at 140 Mount Airy Road, Basking Ridge, New Jersey, to promote AYLUS youth volunteerism. During the open house, our members talked to several Somerset Hill YMCA admin members. They discussed existing volunteer programs in the YMCA and potential volunteer programs AYLUS Basking […]

On January 12th, 2024, AYLUS Great Neck Branch organized its weekly event which offered an opportunity for special needs children to engage in a variety of physical activities. This marks the 9th time that the event has held since it’s start in the tail end of September. Today, we mostly played tag around the park, […]

The Oakland Gardens Branch decided to start a book drive to create a library in Africa as their 2024 goal. On January 9th, 2024, two AYLUS members, Stephanie You and Ioknor Lin, decided to help contribute to this book drive by telling their teacher about AYLUS and the book drive. Their teacher agreed and told […]

1/6/2024 On 1/6/2024, Aylus Great Neck hosted its Scrabble games for students and parents learning English. We met at the Great Neck Library Station Branch at 3:00 PM.   Our two volunteers, Kevin Zhang and Francie Xia played the Scrabble with the student and his parent to expand their vocabulary. With the help of the board […]

In January 2024, The Aylus Chatham Branch volunteered and partnered with Helping Hands(a local Non-profit organization) & Chatham Methodist Church in collecting donations for underprivileged people. They created the artwork to pass the word around the community, collected and sorted the food donations. The donations were drop off to Helping Hands on Jan 6th, 2024. […]

On Friday, January 5th, From 3pm to 5pm, The Aylus Chatham Branch volunteered at the Library of Chathams, they helped with Lego-palooza Event in the Children’s club. Volunteers: 2 Hours Xiang Li Han Li

On January 7th, AYLUS Bellaire branch members volunteered at The Beacon to prepare and serve meals for the homeless. The Beacon is a non-profit organization in Houston, TX that serves individuals experiencing homelessness by meeting daily needs and providing other daily services often taken for granted.  To aid The Beacon in serving fresh hot lunches […]

Reported by Jasmine Zhao Posted by Jenny Wang Frisco & Plano Branch members collected donations for sale and raised funds to support Plano Children’s Medical Center foundation, address is P.O. Box 847253, Dallas TX 75248, email is giving@childrens.com, contact name is Carolyn Allsup and phone number is 214 456 8360. On January 6th, we went […]

Reported by Karen Li Posted by Jenny Wang Frisco & Plano Branch members collected donations for sale and raised funds to support Plano Children’s Medical Center foundation, address is P.O. Box 847253, Dallas TX 75248, email is giving@childrens.com, contact name is Carolyn Allsup and phone number is 214 456 8360. On January 7, 2024, a […]

On December 22 and 23, 2023, 4 members of AYLUS San Clemente Branch volunteered at the FAM Food Pantry in San Clemente, California. On December 22, from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm, two of the branch members, Laura Liu and Elena Hsieh, helped to sanitize the tables and sweep the floors and helped sort various […]

During the recent winter holiday season (December 16th 2023 – January 3rd 2024), over a dozen remarkable members from our community branch embarked on a heartwarming mission: bringing comfort and joy to cancer patients through their own artistic talents. These dedicated youths, armed with creativity and compassion, poured their hearts into crafting beautiful and thoughtful […]

1/6/23 This week, the Great Neck Branch of AYLUS attended the annual briefing at the Bayard Cutting Arboretum. This meeting was meant to summarize the events of 2023, and go over all the events planned for 2024. AYLUS was one of the hardworking student groups to have participated for 2023, and plans to continue doing […]

Evan Wu organized a winter concert at Germantown Plantation Senior Living, 9293 Poplar Ave, Germantown, TN, where the chess club members played chess before. He created a flyer and coordinated with the Resident Engagement Coordinator so she could hang up flyers and spread the words. On 12/2/2023 from 3pm to 4:30pm, 11 AYLUS volunteers (Poppy […]

Lucas Zhang and Celina Xu, the members of AYLUS Memphis Branch, established the Tennis Club to serve big Memphis community children. These events were made to promote the interest of the youth, while also being a healthy educational environment. They taught various basic strokes and played many fun interactive tennis games. Many of the kids […]

In a smaller-scale but equally impactful community outreach initiative, two dedicated individuals from AYLUS Woodbridge took on the role of tutors for non-English-speaking children. Their commitment to fostering language skills and facilitating learning was evident as they worked closely with the students, providing personalized English tutoring. This one-on-one approach not only addresses the specific educational […]

On Sunday, January 7th, volunteers from the AYLUS Columbus Branch performed at the Senior Star at the Dublin Retirement Village. Volunteers played music for the senior residents on the piano and saxophone. Volunteer Hours: 1h: Ayden He, Eric Hong, Emma Yu, Catherine Harman, Rachel Zhu, Lyla Yi, Avery Li

On January 7, 2024, members of the AYLUS Oakland Gardens Branch went to pick up books for our book drive from a local CVS store. We had set up a book drive bin before, and we were shocked to find lots of books in the bin. There were 4 big bags full with books in […]

On Saturday, January 6, 2024, AYLUS Oakland Gardens members went to Chelsea Art School to set up a book drop off box inside of the school. Some AYLUS members helped make and decorate a small box to put inside of the school. We had asked an art teacher named Ms. Jennifer, who had earlier kindly […]

On Friday, January 5th, 2024, members of the AYLUS Oakland Gardens Branch sold balloons in order to raise enough money for the African Library Book Drive Event. The weather during that time was quite chilly. However, there were still many people. We raised $147. The best selling items were balloon swords, frogs, and pikachus. We […]

During the Christmas season, The Edison Branch members, Angela Hu, Erika Yu, Alina Yu and Baoqing Zhong made some greeting cards for the Veterans in Menlo Park Veterans Memorial Home. On 12/25/2023, The members delivered the cards to the memorial home and brought a little bit of holiday cheer for the residents. Every card was […]

Volunteers were: Michael Wu, Sophie Ma, Kayden George, Crew Belnap, Olivia Ding Volunteered for 1 hour each Mental Health Survey Results

On November 3, 2023, Angela Hu, Erika Yu, Baoqing Zhong and Alina Yu from AYLUS Edison Branch went to Winter Street Park after school to pick up trash.  The members picked up plastic bottles, masks, cans, plastic bags and more. The park looked much better after their work. Each member volunteered 2 hours in this […]

AYLUS Roslyn helps out at a School of CCA of Long Island (37th) on Jan 7th, 2024 on Sunday, from 1:30 – 5:00 pm, the Roslyn Branch helped teachers from the Chinese Cultural Association of Long Island. We worked as teachers’ assistants to help keep the students on the same page as the teacher, enforce […]

On 1/6/24, members of AYLUS Syosset attended a meeting at the Bayard Cutting Arboretum to discuss the new years’s voluntary arrangements by the Saturday Stewardship group and affiliated organizations. This includes agencies that aid people with developmental disabilities such as the YAI, AHRC, HALO Network and more as well as fellow student-volunteer groups like SEAKP, […]

The AYLUS Dix Hills Branch volunteers at Kings Point Park to help clean up the hiking trails. Given that this was a continuation of a previous trip there, volunteers traveled along a different part of the hiking trail to collect the trash there. Volunteers brought along trash bags and gloves as they hiked along the […]

In the months of November and December 2023, members of the East Cobb Branch of AYLUS contributed to the Missing Maps project. Missing Maps is an online project in which members use the HOT (Humanitarian OSM Team) Tasking Manager to create maps for OpenStreetMap. The members are shown a satellite image from Bing and must trace […]

On 1/6/2024, members of AYLUS syosset volunteered at the LINPI located at Brentwood. As winter continues on, fewer plants are growing outside and the weather gets colder. Members of AYLUS Syosset are helping out to filter the plants so they can use the seeds for future planting and other needs. They also helped out on […]

On January 6th, 2024, eight members of the AYLUS Morrisville Branch volunteered at the Brown Bag Ministry in Apex. We made sandwiches for local low-income families. In addition, we also assembled food bags with sandwiches, snacks, and sweets. This is a great way to give back to the community. Volunteers: Zhe Wang (2 hours) Jessie […]

On Tuesday, January 2nd, From 10:30am to 12:30pm, The Aylus Chatham Branch volunteered at the Library of Chathams, they helped create children’s Art crafts in the Children’s room, and also organized books for Children’s club. Volunteers: 2 Hours Xiang Li Han Li

In December 2023, The Aylus Chatham Branch volunteered and partnered with Help4All(a local Non-profit organization) in collecting donations for underprivileged people in need. They created an artwork to spread the word around the community, school and their social groups, collected/sorted the collections. The donations were drop off to Help4All on Dec 30th, 2023. Volunteers: 2 […]

On Saturday, December 29th, From 3:50pm to 5:50pm, The Aylus Chatham Branch volunteered at the Library of Chathams, they helped the children’s Bingo activity, and also organized books for Children’s club. Volunteers: 2 Hours Xiang Li Kelly Nie

On Saturday, January 6, 2024, AYLUS Cupertino branch conducted the clean-up event at Wilson Park. We picked up roughly 3 full bags of trash, including things like empty bottles, gums, chip bags and cigarette butts. The collected items were disposed of safely. Members that participated were: Truman You, Hengrui Chen, Guizhen Zhang, (2 hours for […]

On Saturday, Jan. 6th, 2024, AYLUS held its weekly iPad Club at the Fellowship Village. Members helped residents on how to facetime, how to restart iPad, how to use AOL, how to use audible, fix malfunctioning FaceTime, how to email a photo and create a new Netflix profile. Olivia Chen, Yihao Zeng, Tonia Wu and […]

In the fall of 2023 (September and the extended to October of 2023), AYLUS mental health committee conducted an anonymous youth mental health survey, amassing over 400 responses (418 response in total and 417 were from youth responders) from 29 AYLUS branches across 12 states in the US. Columbus Branch Member, Brenna Li, organized the […]

On December 3rd, 2023, the Austin Branch volunteered in the Brown Santa Program by donating toys, wrapping gifts, and providing presents to families in need during the holiday season.

On Saturday, December 29th, From 3:50pm to 5:50pm, The Aylus Chatham Branch volunteered at the Library of Chathams, they helped the children’s Bingo activity, and also organized books for Children’s club. Volunteers: 2 Hours Xiang Li Kelly Nie

In a heartwarming collaboration, AYLUS Woodbridge joined forces with Sending Sunshine, a charity organization dedicated to brightening the lives of seniors through handwritten cards. On January 3, 2024, our volunteers came together and crafted a total of 23 heartfelt cards, each adorned with cheerful messages and warm wishes. This collective effort not only exemplifies our […]

Columbus Branch Selected Bracelets Styles, Prepared and Distribute the Red String for Local Lunar New Events on January 5th, 2023 Volunteers: Catherine Harman: 1.5 hours Brenna Li: 0.5 hour

Celebrating One is a non-profit organization in the Columbus area. They give cards with encouraging quotes to people in need in order to cheer up their spirit, making them feel seen and appreciated. Columbus branch president, Brenna Li, co-ordinated with the nonprofit . A total of 5 branch volunteers wrote the quote “A disco ball […]

Reported by Daniel Wang Frisco & Plano Branch members collected donations for sale and raised funds to support Plano Children’s Medical Center foundation, address is P.O. Box 847253, Dallas TX 75248, email is giving@childrens.com, contact name is Carolyn Allsup and phone number is 214 456 8360. AYLUS Frisco & Plano received an order from a […]

More than 20 Columbus branch members participated in this annual event of making Lunar New Year bookmarks for a local Chinese Language School as a collaboration with the OCCS youth leadership club. Volunteers decorated colorful bookmarks with 2024 Lunar New Year and Chinese dragon zodiac designs. These bookmarks will be free giveaways to spark the […]

On December 2nd and 10th 2023, Aylus Austin Branch volunteers dedicated their time and creativity to craft heartfelt greeting cards. These beautiful handmade cards were donated to the nearby senior living facility, spreading joy and warmth to the elderly residents during the holiday season.

In early January 2024, the American Youth Leadership Foundation (AYLF) Board of Directors has selected Greater Princeton & Far Beyond Branch, West Essex Branch, Pearland Branch, San Diego Branch, Columbus Branch, Frisco & Plano Branch, Murrieta Branch, Syosset Branch, Chapel Hill Branch, and Dix Hills Branch for Winning the Branch of the Month Award for […]

On December 29th, 2023, members of the Raritan Valley branch participated in a food drive hosted by Replenish, an organization created to end hunger. Items were collected in bags and deposited in a drop bin. Replenish will take the items and distribute them to those needing it.    Each volunteer brought 15 items each. With […]

On December 31st, 2023, members of the AYLUS Chapel Hill group cleaned up Bolin Creek Trail which has been adopted by our team from Town Park and Recreation Department and also some parts of the Town Community Center Park as well. Our members were able to pick up trash from the trail with two bags […]

On Wednesday, December 20th, AYLUS-Chapel Hill visited Charles House, a local organization dedicated to helping elders with dementia. In their visit, they talked to Dean Fox, associate director of the Charles House. They talked about Charles House as a whole, initiating a flower pick up volunteer service, and other future plans. Finally, we went on […]

On December 31st, the Chapel Hill branch dedicated their time to volunteer at Kidzu, a children’s museum in University Place. We helped clean the museum, and ensured that the children had a fun and interesting time at Kidzu. We encouraged kids to write letter to their future selves a year later, organized stickers and quidditch […]

In December, members of the Chapel Hill Branch created heart-shaped pillows to support cancer patients during their recovery. These handmade pillows offer practical comfort post-surgery and aim to bring smiles, hope, and strength to those facing the challenges of cancer. We hope our small yet heartfelt efforts make a positive difference in their lives.   Volunteers […]

During December, volunteers of our Chapel Hill Branch organized an event to craft handmade gifts for cancer care kits. Members dedicated hours to create fun journals and masks, aiming to offer hope and strength to cancer patients. We hope that the kindness of our volunteers promotes the spirit of our community, showing the impactful nature […]

West Essex AYLUS members joined the Christmas Card Design and Decoration event in December 2023.  Christmas Card design and decoration at Church of Livingston Grace. The cards will be sent to Fallsview Rehabilitation and Nursing Center. West Essex members: Jeremiah Au, Gabriel Au, Ella Chai, Zoe Leung, Hebe Leung, Jaden Leung, Jarett Lee (1 hour […]

On Dec. 27th, West Essex AYLUS members together with Starry Arts Group Children’s Chorus performed holiday songs at Summit Sage eldercare at 290 Broad Street Summit, NJ 07901.  Members sang holiday songs such as Jingle Bells and a beautiful Chinese song, “listen to me, i want to say thank you.” SAGE Eldercare is a unique […]

On Dec.22nd, West Essex members hosted a holiday concert for seniors at CareOne Livingston.  Earlier in December West Essex members visited CareOne Livingston to discuss concert details with the organization’s event coordinator.  Once the date and location is confirmed, members called out performers, finalized the music / dance for the show, created and printed flyers.  […]

On Dec. 17th 2023, West Essex AYLUS volunteered with Essex Special Skaters to help skaters with disabilities train and practice for Special Olympics Figure skating program. The mission of Special Olympics is to provide year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, giving them […]

On Dec. 10th 2023, West Essex AYLUS volunteered with Essex Special Skaters to help skaters with disabilities train and practice for Special Olympics Figure skating program. The mission of Special Olympics is to provide year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, giving them […]