Each year, twenty-one high school students across the state of Georgia are selected to receive the 21st Century Leaders Georgia Youth Leadership Award on behalf of the youth leadership organization 21st Century Leaders. The award recognizes students’ outstanding display of leadership and commitment to serving others. 

This year, Chamblee’s very own senior Olivia Li (‘22) was chosen as a recipient of this award for her work with fundraising for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network.

“I know that [21st Century Leaders] chooses one characteristic of the 21st century leaders that best represents the person, and I was chosen for being service-oriented,” said Li.

As the co-president of Chamblee’s Interact club, vice president of National Honor Society [NHS], and a member of numerous external volunteer organizations like United Way of Greater Atlanta, Li is constantly serving others in the form of volunteering and fundraising.

“My favorite part about volunteering is getting to give back to the community,” said Li. “To me, it’s really important because I have had a lot of organizations that are nonprofits that have really helped me grow since I was a child.” 

Li was nominated for this award by Kelley Dorrill, a Chamblee math teacher, and Li’s piano teacher of eight years.

“Olivia is certainly an outstanding student, but is also someone who tutors my students religiously. She is just a faithful tutor to my students and has been for three years. She has made a positive difference in countless students in that regard,” said Dorrill.

Dorrill specifically nominated Li for this award because of Li’s efforts to raise money for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network.

“One personal connection that I have with Olivia and one of the areas that she has advocated for and fundraised for is pancreatic cancer. I have lost three family members to that horrible disease and so I just have that personal connection and know what she has done to help [the] research,” said Dorrill.  

PanCAN has had a large impact on Li as well since she has worked closely with them to organize fundraisers in support of their work.

“For PanCAN, which is what I fundraise for, [I serve] mostly [as] a youth ambassador. So I go and I listen in on like the meetings that all the volunteers have to plan, the race events, and other like affiliated fundraisers,” said Li. “[The] biggest fundraiser I did was my T-shirt fundraiser. I was trying to think of a design that represented what I had learned from my dad fighting pancreatic cancer and just like what was going on at the time, and I tried to take those lessons and put it into a design.”

Along with her T-shirt fundraiser, she also held a popcorn fundraiser, in which half of the sales went straight to research towards a cure for pancreatic cancer. 

“In August, I did a popcorn fundraiser because I found this really cool organization that gave 50% of sales to donate to the cause, which is a really high percentage. I got like a lot of my friends to join my team and try to help me sell popcorn. We raised almost $3,000 in a week,” said Li.

Even after high school, Li hopes to continue volunteering and fundraising, with hopes of running her own nonprofit when she is older.

“I hope I will always be able to continue fundraising for PanCAN because they’re doing a really good job increasing the survival rate [of pancreatic cancer]. I definitely plan to continue like service and maybe other forms, whatever they have in college. I’m sure there’s like volunteer organizations and just different local nonprofits that I can connect with and maybe in very like further for the future,” said Li.

Learn more about the 2022 Georgia Youth Leadership Awards here.