2025 Dragon Kim Foundation Fellowship Members Announced

The Dragon Kim Foundation (DKF), an Orange County-based nonprofit - http://dragonkimfoundation.org – has announced the selection of 132 teens from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds living in Arizona, California, and Nevada to the 2025 Dragon Kim Fellowship Program.

Serving as a social entrepreneurship incubator for high school youth, the Foundation inspires them to impact their communities while discovering and pursuing their passions.

More than 500 teens from 151 high schools applied to the Foundation’s ninth annual cohort. The finalists will now refine and implement the 61 individual community service projects they had submitted as teams to the Foundation. The Foundation is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion and has again put forth a diverse cohort.

The teens proposed projects that channel their talents and interests into a community service project that will help their communities. Projects come from a diverse set of subject areas, including academics, arts, athletics, culinary, environmental, financial literacy, immigration, health and wellness, law, and technology.

The teams receive three weekends of leadership training and hands-on guidance from invested professionals who are their mentors. his summer, the teams will implement their projects, supported by grants of up to $5,000 from the Foundation. As always, the leadership training, which elsewhere can cost several thousand dollars, is provided for free to each Dragon Fellow. The projects have the potential of benefiting thousands of people, including many living in challenged neighborhoods.

At the end of the program, the top teams will present their projects to a panel of esteemed judges at the annual Dragon Challenge, to be held in September. One team will win additional funding to continue their project.

In 2024, the Foundation directly served 16,247 individuals and logged 17,989 of volunteer hours. The indirect impact over the nine years of operations is immeasurable but is estimated as of 2024 to have impacted more than 50,000 people. One hundred percent of Foundation’s graduating high school students go on to college or university, and 60 percent go on to attend the top 25 U. S. colleges and universities.

”We’re amazed with the creative entries we received for the 2025 Dragon Kim Fellowship Program,” said Dragon Kim Foundation Executive Director and Co-founder Daniel Kim. “We thank our sponsors, mentors and other supporters for their belief in our organization. We look forward to helping teens from diverse backgrounds bring attention to important issues in their communities that need changing and enabling them to strive to do that.”

The Fellowship was founded in 2015 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.

For more information, visit http://dragonkimfoundation.org

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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 Tsai 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.