Buckhead Students Win Georgia Youth Leadership Award

21st Century Leaders, a Georgia-based non-profit youth leadership and talent development program, announces the top 20 youth leaders selected for the 8th annual Georgia Youth Leadership Awards to be held on Saturday, March 5, 2016 at the College Football Hall of Fame.

Since 2008, 21st Century Leader’s recognizes 20 outstanding high school students throughout Georgia who have made a significant impact on their schools, communities and beyond.

Caroline Carr Grant, a senior at The Lovett School in Fulton County, conceptualized, created, implemented, and expanded the Agape Summer Reading Readiness Program. After witnessing the injustices of the American Public Education System first hand as a tutor for underserved children, realizing that many hardworking, yet academically challenged children were allowed to move from the first to second grade not knowing their alphabet, much less how to read, Carr decided that she needed to take a stand against this human rights crisis.

Working with the Agape Community Center, a non-profit, which strives to empower underserved families in the Atlanta area through education and community events, Carr created a six-week summer program for 25 rising first and second grade children.

The Agape Reading Readiness Program aims to increase children’s reading ability by using comprehensive reading curriculums and educational games, while also increasing students self confidence. Last summer, in the programs second year, 72% of children increased their reading scores, as seen in score differentials from pre and post testing, and the average score increase was 24%, with no child seeing a decline in their reading scores.

Carr is currently working, as a member of the Giving Point Institute, to design a reproducible summer reading curriculum, which she hopes will eventually be distributed to non-profits around the southeast.

Max Rubenstein, a sophomore at The Galloway School in Fulton County, founded his charity, Game Givers in September 2015. Its mission is to provide games to sick children in hospitals through tournaments and donations of new and used video games. Max was inspired to start Game Givers from his Nana, a major gamer who lost her eight-year fight with ovarian cancer in October 2015.

In just 5 months, Max raised over $7,000 in donations and collected more than 700 games and accessories including a significant endowment from Paramount Pictures. Max also partnered with The Children’s Miracle Network- Extra Life with a goal to take Game Givers national by coordinating a 24-hour streaming event featuring Atlanta’s biggest gamers and developers that gives viewers the opportunity to donate to Children’s Miracle Network hospitals throughout the country. Max says 21st Century Leaders and The Giving Point Institute helped him learn the leadership and business skills to start a non-profit charity.

The students will be honored at the Georgia Youth Leadership Awards on Saturday, March 5, 2016 at the College Football Hall of Fame. Through corporate sponsors, each youth leader will be presented with a $250 mini-grant, with one student awarded the Turner Voices Innovative Leadership Award – the event’s top award which includes a $1,000 mini-grant from Turner Broadcasting.