Reshini Premaratne

Reshini Premaratne has never been a girl to give up. Even when organization after organization told her that she was too young to volunteer at the age of 10, she refused to just sit back and not take part in the development of her society.

After spending much of her childhood in her parents' native country of Sri Lanka, Reshini witnessed a lot of poverty and homelessness -- however, she had never seen such destitution in the United States, so she assumed it only existed in that faraway paradise. A drive through Richmond City one night, showed her that she was very wrong. And with that realization, she discovered how she wanted to give back to her community.

So, she created X-Out Homelessness, a youth-led service organization dedicated to raising awareness about and funds for the homeless. Over the past five years, this campaign has spread to over 20 schools and across 5 counties. It has even reached about 15,000 students, raised almost $10,000, and donated approximately 350 pounds of goods to the homeless.

Help Reshini X-Out Homelessness!