Sage High School Teens Named 2025 Dragon Kim Foundation Fellows

The Dragon Kim Foundation (DKF), an Orange County-based nonprofit - http://dragonkimfoundation.org – has announced the selection of four Sage Hill High School students to the 2025 Dragon Kim Fellowship Program.

More than 500 teens from 151 high schools in Arizona, California, and Nevada applied to the Foundation’s ninth annual cohort. The Sage Hill students are among 132 finalists coming from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds who will be implementing a total of 61 community service projects this summer.

Here is a recap of the teens and their projects:

Sage Hill students Saachi Heer and Sophia Belasco created Echoes of Widom. The project focuses on preserving the life stories of seniors to foster connection across generations by sharing their unique and riveting experiences. They will interview seniors to document their stories, write and edit their narratives, and share them through social media platforms and a dedicated website. To show their gratitude for their time and contributions, they will give them a homemade gift in appreciation.

Sage Hill student Abigai Wang and her project partners Leano and Lydia Lo of Northwood High School founded Camp Buddy & Beyond. They are planning to run a week-long summer camp, where each neurodivergent child will be carefully paired with a neurotypical child of a similar age to foster positive social interactions and genuine friendships. The pairs will be offered a variety of activities from sports like tennis and soccer, to art projects, and more. This camp will provide opportunities for fun and personal growth for both neurodivergent and neurotypical children, fostering a community of empathy and inclusivity.

Sage Hill student Jonathan Yan and his project partner Jonathan Li of the Webb Schools founded Ride Smart. The project aims to ensure cyclists and scooter riders are safer through the use of technology and education. The first part employs a mobile app that uses AI and real-time computer vision to cover the blind spots of bikers and warn them with visual and audio cues if there is an incoming vehicle, giving them enough time to get out of harm's way.

Additionally, they plan to include a Bluetooth-enabled camera system that attaches to the backseat of the bike, the rider’s back, or a helmet. The camera connects to the app, providing a live feed and real-time alerts for approaching vehicles while freeing up the user’s phone to perform other tasks. The second part of this project focuses on community outreach and integration of the technology developed in part one of this project. The teens will conduct workshops with hands-on sessions to teach important knowledge about road safety.

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

The teams receive three weekends of leadership training and hands-on guidance from invested professionals. who will be their mentors. Then this 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 Co-founder and Executive Director Daniel Kim. “We thank our sponsors, mentors and other supporters for their belief in our nine-year-old 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.