Lauren Zhang - Gold Award

School: Lake Oswego High School
Category: Young Adults (11-15)
Hours: 212

Lauren Zhang is a junior at Lake Oswego Senior High School. She’s been doing Speech and Debate since 8th grade and coaching middle school Speech and Debate since her freshman year. She came into Speech and Debate, heart set on learning how to argue like a lawyer, and walked out in love with the activity itself. Now, she hopes that middle schoolers will find the same belonging and community in competitive Speech and Debate that she has.

In her sophomore year, she became the primary novice coach for her high school Speech and Debate team, founded the Ethics Bowl Club, joined the Oregon Middle School Speech and Debate League (OMSSDL), and became a co-coach for her middle school’s Math Club. Through these various extracurriculars, she learned that her life’s passion is to be a lifelong learner and educator. For this reason, she hopes to someday become an academic in philosophy, history, or both.

In her junior year, she picked up a job teaching math. She also qualified to the Tournament of Champions (TOC) in Lincoln-Douglas Debate and continued her coaching work.

Other than her assorted extracurricular activities, things that bring her joy are playing violin, reading, origami, music, her cat, her friends, and all the people she’s met and worked with through Speech and Debate, Math Club, and Ethics Bowl Club.

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 Lauren Zhang.