Senior Trisha Jha ’24 is headed to the White House. Not only to meet the president but also to receive the Presidential Lifetime Volunteer Service Award based on her 4,000 hours of community service. This award aims to honor outstanding volunteers for their contributions in and around their communities.

Trisha completed volunteer work through six organizations, a few of which she established herself. Trisha created her nonprofit organization ‘Teach Her Today’ (THT) to facilitate access to finance education and STEM through both online and in-person tutoring and advocacy programs. THT creates and distributes both STEM kits and core education and value kits worldwide. 

“We have distributed in about 100 villages right now,” Trisha said. “We are located in about 12 different countries.”

Her program has had wide-reaching effects on students in not just her community, but those around the world. 

“We do tutoring, actually in the Jordan — the country — area as well as in Katy ISD and Jordan High School,” Trisha said. “We are absolutely international.”

Trisha also started a financial literacy program with ‘Bake Back America,’ in which she aids young children in their understanding and analytical skills of budgeting, currency, and investment aimed at bettering the next generation. 

“There, we work with Duke, Washington University, as well as a few other universities like Michigan,” she said. “We created a full financial literacy service. We teach all over the United States. That is both online, as well as in-person.”

However, her work did not stop there. She played an influential role in her programs, as well as a few others including foster care. 

“I actually trained all the teachers. I trained most of foster care too and showed how you can teach grade three to grade six, how to properly teach financial literacy,” she said. “I also had to take a lot of different exams, as well as make sure the service matched.”

Both acquiring and verifying 4,000 volunteer hours was no small feat, according to Trisha. She has dedicated much of her life to volunteering. 

“It took me about six years to get the award because racking up a lot of hours and actually notifying it with other organizations — that took a while,” she said. 

Trisha’s love for volunteering, specifically in education, stems from the visible sense of gratitude evident on the faces of those she mentors and teaches. 

“I love to do it only because I get to see the people I help — you get to see their eyes actually shine. That’s not something most people know about,” she said. “You can very literally see that you have helped somebody. That’s something that I’ve always aspired to do.”

Growing up, Trisha witnessed firsthand the struggles of providing education to children. She spent time in numerous countries, allowing her to gain perspectives on the different makeups of education systems around the world.

“I’m from all over the world,” Trisha said. “I was born in the United States. However, I’ve traveled and lived in Europe. I’ve lived in Japan. I lived in Thailand for a while. I lived in Switzerland. I’ve lived in all parts of the region, including India. That’s where my parents are from. I’m a first-born American citizen.”

She has focused her efforts on remedying education barriers exacerbated by the caste system in India. 

“It’s not as bad as it was a hundred years ago, but it’s still really bad to a point where even government schools — there is a big barrier in education, especially if you’re in any sort of rural area or village,” she said. 

Despite having received credit for the award, Trisha has not forgotten those who helped her along the way. 

“I would like to say that I only got this award because of my beautiful volunteers,” she said. “I will always give everything to them. They do so much work, and I really appreciate that.”

In addition to her volunteers, a couple of Trisha’s teachers have played a considerable role in her volunteering journey.

“A lot of teachers in the school actually supported me — Mrs. Booth, specifically,” she said. “I remember I came up with the idea of THT in her classroom. We were just completely [spitballing] ideas, and then we found that this is a humongous issue. Why don’t we do something about it?”

Trisha added that Mr. Frishman also helped in enhancing her written communication skills. 

“[Mr. Frishman] has helped so much,” Trisha said. “He taught me how to properly write. That’s very important professionally, especially because I deal with people who are older than me, especially CEO contacts and direct reports.”

The lessons Trisha’s teacher taught her have had long-lasting effects, as she now partners with large corporations such as Microsoft, Google, and Apple. 

“We now have quite a bit of partners in a vast variety,” she said. “I don’t think that I could have ever gotten it without my teachers’ help.”

Coincidentally, Trisha received the award on a special day for her family — her mother’s birthday, September 15th. 

“I actually got the Presidential Lifetime Award on my mom’s birthday, so my mom was ecstatic,”  Trisha said. “She was like ‘Because it’s my birthday, you get good things.’”

Trisha has mentored and taught hundreds of students, yet that has not prevented her from remembering specific instances that resonated deeply with her. 

“I can say that one of my most favorite experiences was probably when I was teaching my first student,” Trisha said. “I have now mentored over 300 students. I taught my first student for about two years, starting fourth until seventh. He was a very energetic fourth-grader. He reminded me a lot of my sister.”

Trisha’s work has earned her numerous other awards, most notably — The Congressional Gold Medal. This summer, she will be traveling to Washington D.C. to receive the award, which verifies that she has earned 800 volunteer hours. 

“I’ll actually be going to the White House twice over the summer to pick up my awards,” she said. “One is from the legislation and Congress. One is from the president.”

Overall, Trisha’s role in education has helped shape people’s perspectives of the education system. She finds joy in helping others view the system in a more positive light.

“I don’t know that I’ve inspired anybody or if I have particularly helped people life-changingly,” she said. “But I do know that people in the world — they are now in the education system, and they don’t hate the education system because of me. I’ll take that as a win.”