A Brief Look at Montgomery County Student Organizations Created Last Year

Although a lot of time has been spent indoors this year, away from friends and relatives, life doesn’t stop – especially for students in Montgomery County. Many of them have taken this time to start organizations to make crucial changes and create the good they want to see.

InnovateX

InnovateX is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing entrepreneurial and financial literacy education for people regardless of their socioeconomic status. Founded in April by Richard Montgomery High School junior Katie Yuan, it has several smaller initiatives working towards this mission, such as their afterschool program and Project Finance.

The InnovateX afterschool program focuses on teaching elementary and middle school students about entrepreneurship and personal finance with high school instructors from all around the county.

Project Finance is a plan for Yuan and others on the InnovateX team to advocate for the inclusion of personal finance education in all MCPS high schools. 

Although some high schools already have a personal finance course, “the availability of this [course] is very inconsistent,” Yuan said. “In some schools like [Montgomery] Blair, there are academic pathways that ensure that students are taught these skills, but in other schools such as Churchill and RM [Richard Montgomery] and Poolesville, there really isn’t personal finance in any of the courses.”

Yuan’s motivation for starting InnovateX came in the form of the news. 

“Right when COVID first started, we were in quarantine, and every day I would see on the news, ‘unemployment rates are rising,’ ‘the economy is going through a recession,’ and just seeing that every day really shows us how important financial management is,” Yuan said. 

She created InnovateX with the goal of preparing high schoolers for a similar situation, if it should happen in the future, and give them the financial literacy tools to succeed.

Serotonin Says

Serotonin Says is a mental health organization founded by Montgomery Blair High School freshman Madeline Gold to help decrease the stigma surrounding mental health and empower others to share their stories. Starting out as just a school project before slowly growing into something greater, Serotonin Says now has a website featuring different informative pages on common mental illnesses, self-care and mindfulness strategies and a monthly newspaper, showcasing different articles, poems and quotes. 

In addition, Serotonin Says has a biweekly podcast, called Serotonin Speaks. Through the podcast, Gold and several other members of Serotonin Says have interviewed many different people about their mental health stories and journeys. 

Gold is looking forward to what can be accomplished in the future, after quarantine ends. 

“I envision our team going to events where companies and organizations set up booths and we can have merch sales there, we can have our newspaper printed for people to take home, we can have little flyers… ,” Gold said. 

But for now, Gold and her team are working to use the resources they have to reach a wide variety of people.

Elevate the Future MD

Founded in June by Richard Montgomery senior Kathleen Li, the Maryland chapter of Elevate the Future focuses on empowering Maryland youths in business and computer science through free educational resources, such as classes, workshops and other events.

Already, Elevate the Future MD has impacted many students in Montgomery County and Maryland. Over the summer, Elevate the Future MD held several business classes for students in grades 5-9, with 120 student registrations total. From September to October, they held an HTML/CSS class, and in early November, they held a book fundraiser, raising around $200 to fund their programs.

Currently, Elevate the Future MD is working on a Python class, which Li hopes to begin in January. They are also collaborating with the Massachusetts chapter of Elevate the Future to host a business pitch competition and workshop series for middle schoolers, set to begin in March.

“Creating accessibility towards these topics early on is really important,” Li said, regarding Elevate the Future’s mission to promote business and computer science skills in students. “They are very pertinent topics in today’s society.”

These student-led organizations are just three among dozens started this year by Montgomery County students. Others include Pineapple Tutoring, Dear Asian Youth MoCo, Girls Global, CREATE Tutoring and many more. As the county hopes for a better year in 2021, it can look back on 2020 as a success in terms of student entrepreneurial achievement and change-making.

Article by Joy Jiang of Richard Montgomery High School

Photo by May Pham of Walter Johnson High School