Hero Story

Sridevi Swaminathan is a talented student who advocates for the issues she believes in, she truly makes the change she wants to see in the world. She is committed to helping her community not for the recognition but to see the impact of the good she does to her community firsthand.

Her passion to help her community started from a very young age. In 8th grade, Sridevi founded her own 501c3 Non-Profit Charity Organization called Make Today Matter, with this nonprofit she released 8 projects over the course of the past 3 years: Smart Sticks For The Blind, Set Her Free (free sanitary pads for students), Red Cross Blood Drives, Lions Club Eyeglass Drive, Adopt a Road, Laptops and Uniforms for The Needy, Toiletries for Ukraine and Help Patients Breathe (Oxygen generator for the hospital). These projects helped make a positive impact in Michigan and around the world. In February of 2021, Sridevi noticed there was a huge problem in her community, that people didn’t have access to the eye care they needed, and that many kids in Michigan and around the country weren’t be able to get access to eye-care as freely as she could, after doing some research she started a eyeglasses drive in partnership with the Lions Club Troy Community chapter. She raised over 150 glasses from her community and local schools, she then sent these to the Lions Club when from there, the eyeglasses were checked and given to those in need all over the world. Her empathy with other people truly amazes me. With her project Adopt A Road, she adopted a road in Auburn Hills, Michigan and organized times where she and her friends cleaned the road twice a year. She organized three Red Cross Blood drives in Oakland county where over 60 donors donated blood to help those in need.

When she heard of the Ukraine War in early 2022, she immediately organized and ran a Toiletry and Clothes drive in Troy and neighboring cities, she donated all the collected goods which were worth over $600 to UCARE (Ukrainian Children’s Aid & Relief Effort) and from there it was given to those in Ukraine. These giving acts clearly show that even though no matter what she has on her plate, she always cares for others around her. The other projects such as Smart Sticks for the blind, Set Her Free (free sanitary pads for students),Laptops and Uniforms for The Needy, and Help Patients Breathe (Oxygen generator for a hospital), were all initiatives that impacted her parents home country, India. She donated all her own money, and raised money to buy sanitary products and distributed them for those in need who couldn’t afford hygienic products multiple times over the past two years. In total she raised $2000 for this cause. She also raised over $3100 to fund an oxygen generator at a hospital in Coimbatore through The Rotary Foundation, India during Covid-19 when the hospital was having an oxygen generator shortage. She raised money to buy uniforms and laptops and distributed them for students in a rural school in India, and she also raised money to buy smart sticks for two blind schools in India for two hundred kids and adults and distributed them. When Sridevi sent me the photos of her team giving the smart sticks to the blind people at the schools, it was truly heartwarming, they looked so grateful for these sticks, and I could never forget how happy the younger children were to receive them. I could tell it was a life changing moment for them, as they could now learn how to easily navigate and travel to places on a daily basis without others' help.

I also came to find out that on top of all of this service, she was the IHL Red Cross youth Coordinator of her district in the 2021-2022 year where she advocated the importance of the International Humanitarian Law to around 250 students and that she also works as a volunteer Red Cross Blood Donor Ambassador and has volunteered over 200 hours as a receptionist at various Red Cross centers. She tutors middle schoolers at a local school called Smith Middle School, and is a data entry volunteer with over 40 hours volunteering at Gleaners Food Bank. She truly enjoys working and bettering her school community too as she was voted as a 10th grade student council representative. She helped run a food drive with her student council.
She started volunteering at a non profit Tamil language school that she graduated from. She volunteered as assistant teacher helping students at the Tamil Saturday school every week and has been doing it for the past three years. Through this opportunity she learned of her passion for community service. In 10th grade she started assistant teaching Tamil at Nunmaan Tamil Academy’s Troy and Online Campus. She helped format books written by all of the students of the school and helped publish it. It's clear that she truly enjoys helping her Michigan community learn a language that helps them connect back to their roots. She has received two gold President's Volunteer Service Awards for volunteering for more than 200 hours.

During the Pandemic she started an initiative called Triple S Fitness with her sister Shivani Swaminathan, where they made interactive fitness challenges every month. Over 75 kids and adults from the Detroit area, including me, participated in this initiative. I could tell that she was interested in helping her community even if it wasn’t face to face due to the pandemic. I even got a certificate for completing these thirty day challenges!

Seeing Sridevi impact her community firsthand is amazing to see as she is doing it at such a young age. Not only in Michigan but all over the world. She always took the issues she saw firsthand and helped those affected by it. I know she is special and deserves this recognition as her work always goes unnoticed, she always puts time out of her day to help those struggling for important issues in any way possible. She has helped so many people in so many different ways and always puts others before herself first.