Emerging Leader Award: Lisa Koenig

While Lisa Koenig is only a senior in high school, her dedication to service has impacted young people on two continents. As president of the Youth Council at The Bridge Youth and Family Services, Koenig engaged dozens of high school students in service.
 
Koenig designed t-shirts for the group with a quote from Mohandas Gandhi that she said sums up why she thinks volunteering is important for young people: “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
 
“Volunteering is my life,” Koenig said.
 
During her time as Youth Council president, membership has increased by a third and their volunteer hours have doubled according to Nancy Kukankos, the Supervisor of Prevention and Volunteer Services at The Bridge. Kukankos credits Koenig’s work as a recruiter, volunteer coordinator, and role model for the group’s recent growth.
 
“When she became president I said she would raise the bar for everyone at The Bridge because her heart is so big and she wants to help so many people,” Kukankos said.
 
Koenig’s interest in serving others isn’t limited to her community in America. It reaches all the way to the Baan Jing Jai Orphanage in Pattaya, Thailand. Koenig said she discovered the orphanage with her father one day when they were driving nearby his home there. What they saw at the orphanage was “gut-wrenching,” she said. While the small home housed around 65 children, they all shared six small beds, and very little else.
 
Convinced that she had to do something to help those children, Koenig started the Thai Your Shoes Foundation after returning to the U.S. Through her foundation Koenig has engaged her peers and the community in an effort to assist the orphanage, organizing a 5K Race, shoe and clothing drives, and other fundraising events.
 
After raising over $7,500 and hundreds of pounds of donations, Koenig made the journey back to the orphanage last summer. She presented the kids with their very own small bags of toys and shoes, and donated the money she raised to the orphanage. Ultimately, Koenig hopes such efforts inspire other people to give back.
 
“I just hope that my own love for volunteering, my own passion for it, and what I get from it will make others want to be a part of it,” she said.