Narrator Casey Sherman: Now more than ever, our world needs repair. The future demands courageous, determined, creative young leaders to step up and make a difference. As our challenges grow more complex and our communities more fractured, the resolve to make a positive impact must grow even stronger. The 2024 Diller Teen Tikkun Olam awardees are unwavering in their commitment to repair the world. These young visionaries are inspiring change and creating solutions. Their passion for the Jewish value of tikkun olam drives their collective action.
David Saxe: Right now, we need hope and inspiration for a better world. The 2024 Diller Award recipients are stepping up to the challenge, repairing the world, and truly making a difference. They show us that young leaders can be the source of inspiration we all desperately need. As a member of the selection committee, I am so encouraged by these awardees and the incredible impact they are having both locally and globally. We can all learn from their ingenuity and dedication, and we can all follow their examples of tikkun olam.
Hayden Crocker: Go Greenish is a coalition of students from across the country building sustainability initiatives in their school districts. I was motivated to found Go Greenish because I felt like there was a need for more environmental initiatives at our school. I thought that youth could really bring that voice, and now we have over 200 volunteers in 13 different school districts.
Being involved in the policy advocacy space, you really need to be outspoken. You need to be persistent. It’s how you get stuff done. One initiative I really take pride in was to go before my school board of trustees to advocate for the purchasing of electric school buses. We’ve also done a lot of work to expand recycling and composting at our school districts.
It’s really just been so unbelievably rewarding to see all the impact proliferate across these school districts. Tikkun olam really means to me building and strengthening community, and when young people come together and use their voice, that’s when we really make change.
Aaron Zevin-Lopez: I think the reason why Generation Z is so engaged in politics right now is ’cause they understand that our world is at a turning point. They understand that this is an incredibly important time to take action. Voters of Tomorrow Virginia is an organization dedicated to empowering the voices of young people in the United States government.
Our key initiatives have included voter preregistration, drives, lobbying elected officials, and proposing legislation at state and national levels. I’ve helped grow the chapter to about 250 youth volunteers, and I’ve been especially proud of our efforts to pre-register young people across the commonwealth.
It’s incredibly important to get young people politically active on the issues that matter to them. I’ve helped train fellow members of Voters of Tomorrow Virginia to build bridges and discuss policy with elected officials. We’ve helped draft and lobby a series of bills to which four of them have passed in the Virginia House and Senate. With the work that I’ve done at Voters of Tomorrow Virginia I’m incredibly optimistic and hopeful in seeing young people fight for causes they believe in. Our movement will continue to inspire Generation Z to participate in our democracy.
Sophia Libman: X-Time is all about the power of curiosity. It’s a true passion of mine just being able to see students’ eyes light up. I founded X-Time during the pandemic to increase access to science and STEAM opportunities in underserved communities, and today it’s grown into an international non-profit organization. We’re in over 25 states and 8 countries from Panama to Taiwan.
In each of our X-Time High School Club chapters, our volunteers lead engaging educational hands-on STEAM activities, focusing on science, technology, engineering, art, and math. In addition, we build explore stations, which are collections of free STEAM resources provided to hospitals, community centers, and orphanages. Being able to see firsthand the impact with students, it’s just been so meaningful and inspiring. Those smiles stay with you and propel you forward.
Mark Leschinsky: The biggest power of filmmaking is to help tell an important story, a story worth being told in a story that’s sharing an important message. When I first started the Student World Impact Film Festival, I never imagined that it would become the largest youth-led film festival in the whole world. I just wanted to create a space where people from different cultures could come together and showcase their artwork.
Today, over 12,100 filmmakers from 149 countries are finding their voice on topics such as environmental conservation, racial justice, human rights, and a variety of other social justice issues. And the films open up dialogue, you know, they invite conversation, whether it’s from Sri Lanka or Belarus or Japan. These topics serve to bridge the gap between people of different cultures all around the world.
Recently at the film festival, I created a brand new category just for Jewish films, and I think it’s important now more than ever to showcase Jewish artwork. There are so many issues that divide us, and this film festival brings people together. It brings a sense of hope that we’re all one people and that we can work together to solve our biggest problems.
Zach Gottlieb: Opening up and being vulnerable is especially hard for guys because our whole lives you’ve been told, being tough is the only way to go, and if you’re not, that you’re not masculine, and in reality, vulnerability is a strength. You need to be honest with yourself about your needs and what works for you and what doesn’t. And when you’re honest about these things, it leads to you being happier and more in control of your emotions.
Talk With Zach is a global Gen Z wellness platform that’s engaged over half a million people in over 30 countries. I host live conversations with teenagers and influencers. The goal is to inspire activism, reduce stigma, and increase access to emotional health resources. A really big moment for Talk With Zach was one, we partnered with UCLA to host the first-ever Gen Z Wellness Summit with over a thousand people. It’s amazing to see so many teenagers getting involved and redefining what it means to be vulnerable.
Zoey Schwartz: For someone who’s about to come out, it can feel really scary to say the words I’m gay in your head, like every relationship is about to change because of this piece of information that makes you who you are. I didn’t know anybody else who was experiencing any of the same feelings that I was, and so because I didn’t find a place that I necessarily fit into, I decided to create my own.
I Understand You is a community and safe space for queer youth where teens can share and read their own coming out stories and gain access to peer-to-peer mentorship. The stories are so important because they’re dealing with the feelings of being scared and isolated and then finding your true self. It helps people actually see they’re not the only person who’s experiencing what they’re going through and that they’re not weird and they’re not different.
As IUY has grown as a community, we’ve been able to expand our mission, whether that be through our peer-to-peer mentorship program or providing gender-affirming healthcare to trans and queer youth across the country. I understand you can always be a place of acceptance, support, love, and empowerment for me and so many other queer youth.
Amelie Liu: It happened on a family trip to Lake Michigan. My father saw two boys struggling in the current, and he jumped in to rescue them. Seconds later, he pulled the boys to safety, but in the process, he was lost under the choppy waters forever. I was seven years old.
When you’ve lost a loved one at such a young age, it’s so hard to understand the depth of your loss, let alone navigate your grief and try to work through it. And that’s why I created Peer Healing, a nationwide organization that works to help bereaved teens learn coping skills and find community with other teens who have lost a loved one.
At the core of Peer Healing is our peer-to-peer model. I worked with researchers and experts in the field to create a 10-week program to help bereaved teens at every step of the grieving process. And what’s really beautiful about Peer Healing is you feel a sense of hope because you see other teens navigating their loss and working through their loss, and it lets you know that you can too. To me, tikkun olam means transforming grief into empowerment, and I’m so proud to have been able to impact so many bereaved teens across the country.
Hila Tor: Growing up in Israel, I had a really deep connection to the land. I think of sand on the Mediterranean beaches and the olive trees near the Moshav where I grew up. It played a really big part in building my connection to nature and the natural world.
My mission with Planet Youth Project is to teach young kids about climate change through an empowering lens and provide them with the tools to build lifelong sustainable habits. We partner with schools in the Seattle area to implement our developed curriculum through classroom presentations, school assemblies, STEM nights and more. We also run free summer camps and after-school programs. I’m really proud of how far this program has come and how much we’ve grown with our reach. We have over 50 youth volunteers and we’ve reached thousands of students with hands-on experiential learning.
Jonah Cohen: I think one of the reasons why I’m so passionate about music is because it has the capability to bring together different people with different experiences and create this collaborative exchange, which is nothing short of magical. Unfortunately, the classical music world is very expensive and exclusive, and it makes it so young composers who are really passionate and talented are unable to gain access to those opportunities.
The Now Beat Project combats this inaccessibility by providing free mentorship, networking, and performance opportunities for young composers all around the world. Participants in our program receive one-on-one lessons with our dedicated team of composer mentors and they also receive a very high-quality performance of one of their pieces at the Julliard School.
Perhaps most importantly, our composers form a very diverse and unique community spanning 17 U.S. states in 5 countries. To me, tikkun olam is using my passion to make a difference and it’s just so fulfilling to see the growth that these young composers achieve.
Catarina Galindo: Salineño is located on the border between Mexico and America on the Rio Grande River. It’s one of the most biologically diverse areas in North America. People come from all over the world to see rare birds that are only here because of the very special habitat that we’re able to protect. Unfortunately, a new proposal for 20 miles of border wall threatened to cut directly through Salineño and our habitat. I knew that I had to take action, so I immediately began organizing a coalition not only of the citizens of Salineño but also environmental groups across the Rio Grande Valley, and ultimately we were successful in our efforts to protect this amazing environment.
Today, that coalition makes up the Friends of Salineño, a group that’s dedicated to preserving, restoring, and protecting the habitat along the Rio Grande. For many of our volunteers doing this work has changed the way they see themselves. They realize the impact they can have to make change for generations to come.
Jonathan Tamen: New immigrants and underprivileged students are not always given the opportunity to participate in advanced engineering, robotics, science, and math classes. With Helping Hands, we work to change that, create these opportunities for everybody. All of our classes are free, and a lot of the students we work with are first-generation new immigrants. You see these students discover themselves and discover that they love science. We have lots of exceptional volunteers, including some who are going to elite colleges to study mathematics or engineering, and they can be really life-changing role models.
An important step for our organization was when I reached out to the mayor and city officials to offer our curriculum at their summer day camp. That’s how we’ve been able to scale our impact to over 1,200 students. One of the programs we do that’s really special is teaching the kids about 3D printing to make free prosthetic hands that we donate to people in need. I’m just so happy to see the impact that we can make with a passion for science and engineering.
Mason Arditi: Growing up and seeing bankruptcy in my family really gave me a perspective on the importance of financial literacy. I was desperate to make sure that financial education would be something that went from disempowering to empowering, and I know that there are millions of other young people across the country that are impacted by this issue.
The Youth Entrepreneurship Association is bridging the gap between high schoolers and financial education. We have dozens of chapters across the nation where high schoolers are teaching financial concepts to their peers. What we really try to emphasize is real-world experience, especially as you turn 18 and you start getting into student loan debt, credit cards, budgeting, taxes, all these nuanced topics that you really have no experience with.
But I think the most important impact is that our students actually create their own businesses. When students get their first customer or sell their first product, it really gives them a new sense of agency and ownership. They’re proud of what they’ve built and they’re more inclined to continue learning and continue growing to lead successful careers and successful lives.
Stella McLaney: Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that’s used to make fake pills look like real medication.
News Reporter: It’s a national effort to save children from overdosing, with Florida being number two for Fentanyl deaths in the country.
After a young person I knew passed away from Fentanyl, I knew I had to do something in my community.
It’s a national effort to save children from overdosing. With Florida being number two for Fentanyl deaths in the country. After a young person I knew passed away from Fentanyl, I knew I had to do something in my community.
One of the first steps my co-founder and I took was speaking before the mayor and city commissioners to raise awareness among politicians. From there, I formed key partnerships with the school board, police department, advocacy groups like Fentanyl Fathers and recruited over 50 teen ambassadors between four different states. Today, my organization SAFE is reaching thousands of students. We lead high school assemblies, educational workshops, Narcan distribution events, and established high school clubs. Recruiting so many teen ambassadors has been key to spreading this message across the country. For me, tikkun olam means being the person to take action. I know that SAFE is making a direct impact and saving lives.
Brooke Friedman: Typically, the process of donating clothes is rooted in the convenience of the donor, but my goal with She Styles is to flip it on its head and make it about the experience of the recipient and giving them the dignity of choice. We partner with nonprofit organizations across Los Angeles to create pop-up shopping experiences for young girls facing hardship.
Our pop-up shops really feel and look like a real store. You can just see from the girls’ faces how happy and excited they are. We had a girl come in, and she told me that she had been crying before she came to our pop-up, and as she was leaving, she turned around and she asked me if she could gimme a hug before she left. Donating thousands of clothes is one thing, but seeing that impact you’ve made on one girl, 10 girls, 20 girls is my favorite part of She Styles. That is what we wanna see.
Joshua Danziger: I was sitting at Kiddish lunch on January 15th, 2022 when one of the congregants rushed in and announced there had been hostages taken at a synagogue in Colleyville only a couple hours north. Chills went down my spine. It was very clear that antisemitism had the capacity to affect me, my community, my friends.
I founded the Jewish Security Alliance to provide Jewish teens with the skills they need to protect themselves and their communities against anti-semitic threats. Through our situational awareness programs, we teach a whole host of strategies and skills, whether that’s self-defense skills, exit strategies, or first aid.
I partner with trainers who are former law enforcement, whether that’s FBI or police, not only in my community, but in communities all across the country to provide this crucial training to as many Jewish youth as possible. My goal is to make sure Jewish youth feel safe in their schools, in their synagogues, in their Jewish communities, so we can continue being unapologetically Jewish and proud.
Narrator Casey Sherman: The 2024 Diller Award recipients are now part of a network of 204 Jewish leaders who have collectively impacted millions of people over the course of 17 years. The awardees exemplify the vision of Helen Diller, who believed in the power and strength of young leaders. They are not afraid to take on some of the biggest issues of our time and create ripples of good for a world that needs them more than ever.