Jake Bernstein had been interested in volunteer work from a young age, when he saw the support that friends and neighbors provided his family during his father’s military deployment. 

However, he found that opportunities to give back were few and far between for those under 18—and decided to do something about it.

The 19-year-old St. Louis resident was selected as one of the recipients of the 2013 Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Awards. The $36,000 award from San Francisco philanthropist Helen Diller recognizes teenagers who are involved with volunteer and social action projects. This is the first year that the award was available to teens outside of California.

Bernstein was recognized for volunTEENnation.org, a website he started with his sister Simone in 2009. Frustrated by the lack of resources for students under 18 who wanted to find volunteer opportunities, the siblings created the nonprofit organization to link teens and tweens to organizations seeking volunteers.

The siblings have both previously been included in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 List.

The University of North Carolina freshman spoke with the Jewish Light from Ecuador, where he is volunteering with Junto con los Niños, an organization that works to eliminate child labor.

How did you get the idea for volunTEENnation come about?

My family and community—school, boy scouts, synagogue—encouraged volunteer service from a young age.  However, it was difficult for my sister, Simone, and me to find non-profit organizations willing to take volunteers younger than 18 due to safety, security and liability concerns.  In the summer of 2009, my sister contacted organizations and I used my limited HTML knowledge to build an online directory of volunteer opportunities for teens in the St. Louis area, sorting by age, theme and region. Interest in our website from schools, non-profit organizations and students throughout the nation drove us to take the site national.  Thanks to great help from our friends at binarylily.com, VolunTEENnation.org was established in March 2012.  We were able to move from a directory to a national volunteer database with over 5,000 volunteer opportunities, resources for teenagers and a national blog.  Our team, composed of dozens of interns and ambassadors, continues to take on new initiatives.

Why is it so important that teens and tweens volunteer?‬

The first step to any change is understanding.  Volunteering can cultivate this understanding and empathy necessary to address social injustices and heal divisions within communities.  These problems are for our generation to solve.  Not only does volunteering at a young age promote lifelong community engagement, but youth volunteers have the time, energy and comfort with technology to help organizations.  Additionally, volunteering is a great way to gain work readiness skills and professional experience.  Due to lack of employment opportunities for youth, skills learned through volunteer work can be critical for future employment.   

What are your plans for the funding you received from being recognized for the award?‬

I hope to use this funding to further our mission at VolunTEENnation.org through website improvements, expanding our mini-grant project internationally and offering more service learning programs for inner-city youth. Before leaving for Ecuador, I talked to many students who had spent a summer abroad volunteering.  They all enjoyed it, but had a similar criticism: Sometimes, there just weren’t things for them to do.  With the language barrier and cultural differences, the students said that it could be hard to truly assist the organization.  ‬

Thousands of students from the United States volunteer abroad and often, a small grant could give these students a chance to start their own project.    

What sort of work are you doing right now in Ecuador?‬

With JUCONI staff I visit families identified by JUCONI, and schools in the most marginalized sectors of the city (Guayaquil, Ecuador).  At each school, the kids pepper me with questions about my favorite soccer (futbol) team, music artists and hometown.  I also help out in the office with technology and social media.

What are your future goals for the site and organization?‬

We want to continue to reach out to more school districts across the country to encourage students to volunteer.  We want to involve the organization in more international initiatives.  We will start by expanding our mini grant program abroad.