Radnor High School Junior Named One Of PA's Top Youth Volunteers

RADNOR, PA — A Radnor High School junior was recently named one of Pennsylvania's best young volunteers.

Brendan Hung was recently named one of Pennsylvania's top youth volunteers by The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards for his work with the Homeless Youth Project.

Hung is one of only two students selected from Pennsylvania.

With the award comes $1,000, an engraved silver medallion, and a trip to a national event in Washington D.C. this May where he will be named one of America’s top youth volunteers of 2020.

According to the Radnor Township School District, Hung is the founder of the Homeless Youth Project, a nonprofit organization that has so far distributed over 7,000 support kits to homeless youth shelters.

The project also campaigns to raise international awareness of youth homelessness through its chapters around the world.

While researching a school project on homelessness in the 5th-grade, Hung visited a local shelter and met a boy his age named Isaiah, who said his favorite things were socks.

"I soon decided I wanted to collect socks and other useful items for Isaiah and other homeless kids," Hung said.

He asked friends, classmates and neighbors for help, and after a few weeks delivered 20 "support kits" to Isaiah's shelter. The joy of that experience, he said, "immediately sparked a new desire to help as many homeless kids as I could."

After recruiting volunteers from his school to help conduct donation drives to create more support kits, he founded the Homeless Youth Project club at RHS and started spreading awareness about the crisis in youth homelessness. Eventually, he managed to convince his friends in other states and countries to launch their own HYP chapters.