2024 Dragon Kim Fellowship opens with up to $300,000 in teen grants

Calling all motivated Arizona, California, and Nevada high school students who want to make a positive difference in their communities next summer!

Nonprofit Dragon Kim Foundation is now seeking applications for the 2024 Fellowship cohort, following a record-setting year that supported 47 Fellowship projects run this past summer by 80 high school students in the three states. Collectively, the projects directly impacted 10,874 individuals and empowered 815 volunteers to contribute to the Fellows’ vision and cause.

The mission of the Orange County, California-based organization is to inspire our youth to impact their communities while discovering and pursuing their passions.

For 2024, the Foundation plans to award community service grants of up to $5,000 to 60 projects devised and implemented by motivated teens.

To gain a better understanding of what’s involved, students can attend one of several online Inspiration Sessions that will be held in the weeks ahead. To sign-up, visit https://calendly.com/beadragon...

Applications are open now through January 9. Please visit http://dragonkimfoundation.org or email info@dragonkimfoundation.org for more information.

Student teams of two or three teens are eligible to apply for the program. The Foundation will announce the winning students in the first quarter of 2024. Once chosen, these Fellows will participate in three weekends of intense leadership and business training. They will also be paired up with mentors with experience in their project area.

At the end of the program, they will present their project to a panel of esteemed judges at the Dragon Challenge. The top projects may be eligible to compete for additional funding to continue their projects.

In 2023, student projects ranged from a hands-on chemistry and engineering workshop, a beginners’ business laboratory, and a documentary film about chronic illness and mental wellness paired with a digital journaling app, to a health and wellness project for the unhoused community of southern Nevada, a comedy lab to help children in pediatric hospitals, a magician’s workshop, plus dance and musical theater camps for kids.

“As we launch our next class of Fellows, we are looking for inspired teens who want to make a measurable difference in their communities,” said Dragon Kim Foundation Board Chairman and Co-founder Daniel Kim.

He said that many Dragon Kim Fellowship alumni are now attending top colleges, with the majority of Fellows now at one of the Top 25 colleges, citing Fellowship projects as one of the aspects of the students’ application that made them stand out.

“Teens who are spending their summers working in their communities to create positive change are the type of leaders that colleges are looking for, and indeed, who will comprise our next generation of leaders,” said Kim.

The Fellowship was founded in honor of the late Dragon Kim, a talented young musician, athlete and scholar who wanted to help others. It has become a seedbed for the next generation of creative thinkers and entrepreneurs who want to create positive change.

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About the Dragon Kim Foundation

The Dragon Kim Foundation was established in 2015 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization by Grace and Daniel Kim to honor the memory of their late son Dragon Kim, who had been attending the Orange County School of the Arts. The mission of the Dragon Kim Foundation is to inspire our youth to impact their communities while discovering and pursuing their passions. Visit the website at http://dragonkimfoundation.org.