Praneeth Alla, 16-year-old - Presidential Service Award Winner

May 04, 2018


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What a 16-year-old boy can do is…

 Let’s guess what a 16-year-old student can do? He may be seriously studying or may be enjoying the life with friends, but Praneeth Alla is not one among them. He spares his time to help the unprivileged in the society around him. His social service begins from a tender age of 4-5 years, when he used to offer his pocket money to the orphan children in the society. 

This habit grows along with him and made him a very special person. While continuing his studies in Pennsylvania high school, Praneeth Alla, developed skills in software applications. Quite naturally, he used his skills to create online platforms to reach more like-minded people around the world and start rising funds for the noble cause. One can’t imagine, a 16-year-old boy can spread his service to his motherland India also at that age. Don’t be surprised to know that his goal is to serve all the unprivileged across the world. 

 His goals: 

1.       Improve the quality of education of rural underprivileged children and to provide humanitarian assistance to orphans and special needs kids.

 2.      Help the high school students to find hundreds of national scholarships, internships, summer programs and study-abroad opportunities that will help them get into the schools of their dream. 

3.      Fund raising programs, bring socioeconomic change in under resourced communities through education, provision of basic necessities and rural empowerment.

 4.      Improving quality of education in rural communities

 His efforts: 

Hence, he begins serving the poor and orphan children in Pennsylvania. Later, he created peerlift.org  with a mission to connect high school students from all backgrounds with resources and opportunities for college admissions, including scholarships, Internships, etc. 

Later, he created number of such online nonprofit platforms like servtoday.org , nriyouthclub.org , districtnri.org etc. more or less for the same purpose and the same goal. His dedication and efforts to help the unprivileged in the society got overwhelming response from all over. Praneeth as a Director of Technology developed this online platform and working on adding new functionality every week.

 His services: 

During his last visit to India, he happen to visit an orphan home-‘Happy Homes’, that shelters 80 kids suffering with dreaded AIDS disease. Their miserable situation virtually shook him. So, he created a Facebook account and also organized a fund raising campaign through District NRI Foundation (DNF), with which he personally raised $ 5,000 and $25,000 in total. He donated that amount to the Happy Homes. 

  As a youth chairman for District NRI Foundation, founder of youth driven NRI Youth Clubs, Praneeth Alla is leaving no stone unturned for sailing ahead towards his goals. 

Praneeth, who is currently a junior at Episcopal Academy, wants to pursue a degree in Computer Science and Management, so that he can enhance his technical and software skills and use it for the uplift of the poor around the world. 

He also provides software services to other non-profit organizations like Diwali Food Drive, Inc. (diwalifooddrive.org) that mainly focuses on collecting food for food banks. He personally collects from his local community 55,000 pounds of food and donates to Diwali Food Drive, Inc. He formed NRI Youth Clubs and motivated many young chaps of his age in US to follow his path. Many of them either serving in the US or in their home towns back in India.

 

NRI Youth clubs so far digitalized 113 class rooms benefiting more than 3,000 rural kids. Under humanitarian assistance program, youth clubs raised funds and donated more than 100 prosthetics to people who have lost their legs in accidents or due to diabetics. Youth Club donated 67 tricycles for underprivileged special needs people.  NRI Youth club donated 15 beds for Amma Orphan Home in Kothagudem and provided monthly grocery support for various orphan homes.  Youth club under the leadership of Praneeth is also planning to provide scholarships for low income people who can't afford college education.   

 His plans:

He says merely creating an online platform for these noble causes is not enough. They constantly need upgradation, monitoring. Especially, when money matters are involved transparency is needed to ensure the ability to collect and manage funds, publicize the projects, let the donors track the expenditure and to know whether it is really serving the cause or not. So, Praneeth Alla, while continuing his studies, he spent over 1500 hours for these non-profit organizations and all those online platforms development and maintenance. His hard and sincere efforts on this work yields more than $250,000 through District NRI Foundation platform.

 The peerlift.org  launched by Praneeth Alla eases the tedious process of searching for various scholarships, summer programs for all high school students. Praneeth Alla and his friends proved that they are really serious about their service to deserved by registering their PeerLift as a 501(c)(3) certified organization.

  Praneeth Alla and their 12-member team continue to work, on average, five to ten hours a week each on the student-run website, continuously updating functionality and adding to its content. The team also has recruited high school students to serve as PeerLift ambassadors in their respective areas.

 Peerlift.org features some helpful features that comparable websites do not. Students can filter and customize their search to locate the most relevant opportunities for their specific qualifications and needs. Deadlines, award money and specific requirements are clearly marked, and the website's unique algorithm directs students to multiple options with similar criteria. 

 His Awards:

For his service work Praneeth was recently awarded Pensyslvania's top Youth Service Award from Prudential Financial.  The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards represents the United States’ largest youth recognition program based solely on volunteer service. He received "Presidential Service Award" and special appreciation from secretary, Department of Education, Pennsylvania. Praneeth also   received "Volunteer of the year award" from Telangana Government. 

Praneeth Alla’s sister Sravya is also is very actively taking part in this noble and social services. She along with Coca-Cola Scholars has received an award in Atlanta, GA.

Let us hope Praneeth Alla and his team of young chaps inspire thousands of others and extend helping hand to every needy person across the Globe.


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