Austin Yan - Gold Award

School: Lincoln High School
Category: Teens (11-15)
Hours: 110

Austin is a sophomore at Lincoln High School. At a very young age he has always had a deep interest in STEM and the application it has to their current society. He also has been passionate about playing basketball with friends and on the school teams.

During the pandemic their physical health was not the only thing that saw a decline, their mental health was also impacted by the changes. For students, the two largest factors that affected their mental health was distant learning and the physical isolation we had with their peers. Austin worked with one of his friends to do a lot of research on how the pandemic, namely the isolation, affected the mental health of teens. He created a short video explaining how these two factors affected their mental health, whilst including personal experiences of people that have faced these challenges during this period. This was another reason why a couple friends and he decided to volunteer and teach algebra to a group of middle school students. They believed that a strong foundation in math allowed them to succeed later on in more complex math in high school and college. They tutored one hour a week for twelve weeks, but spent more hours creating slides and lesson plans we thought were the most important for the students to learn/review. This way thery were able to provide the students with a concise yet effective learning method. This was their pleasure to help the younger students while there was a lack of academic support from school and teachers.

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 Austin Yan.