Eleanor Song - Gold Award

School: Early College High School
Category: Teens (11-15)
Hours: 179

Eleanor Song is a four-time recipient of the Presidential Volunteer Service Award and a current junior at Early College High School.

Eleanor is the former treasurer of Sunset Red Cross and organized a fundraiser in the spring that raised over seven hundred dollars for humanitarian relief. She was also a team lead for the International Humanitarian Law Youth Action Campaign, visiting middle schools and regional meetings to spread awareness about the laws of war. As the current secretary of Sunset Red Cross, she plans and attends biweekly club meetings. Visit redcross.org/donate/donation.html/ to donate to the Red Cross.

Weekly, Eleanor meets remotely with a student from Ukraine. These sessions, which began in January of 2022, originally were only for English tutoring but became a learning experience for both people when the war began. Eleanor treasures these weekly meetings, whether they take the form of an English lesson, watching videos in the language, or simply catching up. Check out help-ukraine.carrd.co for information on how to help the war effort.

Eleanor is the Chief of Outreach at Infinity Education, a two-year-old student-run augumented reality company. Infinity’s app helps students with ADHD and/or dyslexia learn in a customized manner that actually benefits them, as opposed to traditional education. In this role, Eleanor connects with digital audiences, writes press releases, creates social media content, attends team meetings, and occasionally assists the web development team.

In early August, Eleanor volunteered at two stations at the Chinese Festival organized by the Oregon Chinese Coalition in downtown Portland. She explained traditional Chinese strategy games to event attendees and helped them create themed paper lanterns.

As an event captain of both Parliamentary Debate and Program Oral Interpretation for Sunset’s Speech and Debate team, Eleanor spends two afternoons each week guiding students and providing feedback. She also volunteers as a captain of Parli at the Sunset-run Tumwater program, which entails planning, teaching, and judging weekly. Having placed at the state level and attended the national tournament, speech and debate has been a priority for Eleanor since joining the activity in freshman year. She also taught Speech and Debate over the summer as a part of a camp organized by Youth-Link.

Eleanor is the Chief Outreach Officer for the Oregon Youth division of GoBabyGo, a national organization that provides modified cars to young children with hypotonia and other syndromes that severely impair their movement. The Oregon Youth team began its work over the summer and has since helped more than thirty children gain mobility. Eleanor shares online updates with GBG’s community, creates social media content, manages fundraising, and helps build and modify cars.

Volunteering has always been a central part of how Eleanor spends her time; she is happy to have the opportunity to give back.

Oregon Chinese Coalition is proud to join the President of the United States in recognizing the volunteers who consistently take the time to make a difference in the lives of others. Therefore, it is a great honor to present the President’s Volunteer Service Award (PVSA) to Eleanor Song.