Harnessing the Power of Youth

Meet Daily Point of Light Award honoree Yusuf Dagli. Read his story, and nominate an outstanding volunteer or family as a Daily Point of Light.

Yusuf Dagli, 17, didn’t move to New Jersey until high school, but he has made quite an impact on his adopted home. At school, he’s on both the track and soccer teams and serves as class president. Outside of school, he and his friend founded Scholarly Service Society with the goal of creating cleaner, safer and more educated communities.

In just under a year and a half, they’re already making a notable difference. Once or twice a month, Yusuf and his team organize volunteer opportunities and educational events that fall under one of four branches: medicine, business, STEM and community service. Volunteers can help others while gaining experience and building skills related to their interests and aspirations. Often, 15 to 20 people turn up for local events with 52 tuning in for the last Zoom discussion led by the group’s business administrator.

Through various drives, Yusuf’s organization has collected and donated roughly $15,000 of clothing to the local Goodwill, plus another 200 pounds of nonperishable food and $5,000 worth of hygienic products to a nearby soup kitchen. Already, their work has inspired others to start chapters across the U.S. and in Europe and Asia.

What inspired you to get started with this initiative?

I’ve always volunteered. I started at my local mosques and parks with cleanups or donations. But I wanted to make my own thing, host events that I would be particularly interested in and clean up our environment.

My friends—including my co-founder, Pahul Virk—and I had aspirations to start a school club, but it got denied for being too similar to one that already existed. That was the spark we needed to create Scholarly Service Society outside of school. Pahul and I originally thought of the idea and came up with a name, a logo and thoughts about what we were going to do.

Tell us about your volunteer role with Scholarly Service Society.

In the beginning, my day-to-day was planning what everything would look like: leadership positions, events, sponsorships, etc. We had to plan events with our township and get permission to clean up areas. They would supply our projects with vests, trash bags, gloves and other supplies. After that, we interviewed students within and outside of our school to see what would be the best fit for this organization. Now I work with my other leaders to plan events, collaborations, sponsorships and fundraisers.

In order to raise money for our boys’ basketball team, we’ve collaborated to clean up roads and parks and raised over $1,200. We’ve also collaborated with our class. As class president, I was able to go between the two groups and get more traction.
Each of our four branches does different events and is led by a president and vice president. We also have a social media manager and a project manager. I preside over staff meetings and support our other chapters.

What kinds of volunteer opportunities do you offer within each branch?

We plan a variety of different activities. Our first ever event was a food drive. We got food from all over New Jersey to donate to Trenton Soup Kitchen. We’ve also had hygiene product drives when they reached out to us about the need. Pahul and I contacted local businesses for donations as well as donating ourselves. And we’ve done cleanups at, for example, our community park. Drives are less time-consuming for people while still being helpful.

We’ve collaborated with school clubs, Drexel University and SALDEF, Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund where we teach them things like financial literacy under our business branch. We also want to host STEM camps for kids over the summer.

We’ve done online events where professors speak about business for those interested in that. We’ve also had a sandwich drive where volunteers make sandwiches to donate. Our local Taco Bell sponsored some peanut butter jelly and sandwiches for that.

What’s been the most rewarding part of your work?

The most rewarding part is seeing the results of our cleanups or our donations. For instance, when we cleaned a local road, we collected over four bags filled with trash. We took before and after pictures, and you could see how much trash was being left. At our local park, we picked up 12 bags. It demonstrated how polluted the area was and how we were able to make it safer for children and families who might want to visit. I also like to see the expressions of the Trenton Soup Kitchen volunteers when they see the donations we bring, because they can really help a lot of people.

Tell us about future partnerships, programs or events that you are excited about.

Right now, we’re on a break, because we’re trying to plan a blood drive with Bucknell University and the Red Cross. Those take a little longer.

Why is it important for others to get involved with causes they care about?

It’s important for people to take initiative and really understand what is going on. Not only are you helping your own community, but you could help others. Many people need volunteer hours that we’re able to provide, so it helps fulfill them in that way. It’s important kids not be surrounded by trash and litter when they’re trying to have a fun day at the park. It’s important for underserved people to be fed and provided basic necessities to live. And it’s important to come together as a community to work on something bigger than ourselves.

Any advice for people who want to start volunteering?

Join our Google Classroom. We post many volunteering opportunities ahead of time. We don’t want to just keep our volunteers just for us. We provide volunteer opportunities that go beyond our organization.

What do you want people to learn from your story?

No matter who you are, you can always make a difference. You just have to put the energy and the work in.

Do you want to make a difference in your community like Yusuf? Find local volunteer opportunities.