Rachel Rosenfeld, 17, founded the R.S. Rosenfeld school in Srah Khvav village in Siem Reap province, Cambodia.

During Rachel Rosenfeld’s junior year in high school, the unexpected happened. She developed a stomach condition that kept her out of school the whole year. While recovering, her sense of purpose changed after reading a New York Times article on the plight of young Cambodians.

The article followed a 17-year-old girl who most likely would have been forced into prostitution if she didn’t go to school. The problem was that there were no schools in the girl’s village. Rachel, now 17 herself, remembers how the story inspired her to write letters asking for donations so the girl could go to school.

After hundreds of letters were forwarded organically across the country, Rachel received $52,000 in donations. In December 2007, she attended the opening of the R.S. Rosenfeld School in Cambodia’s Siem Reap province. Now, 300 students there can get an education thanks to funding from an unexpected place.

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Zachary Peskin, right, and his brother Adam discuss the Special Business Partners Program with a retailer.

It’s Autism Awareness Month, but for people who have autism or live with someone who does, they are aware every day. Zachary Peskin, 16, decided not only to be aware but also to be active.

Zachary’s older brother, Adam, is autistic. After years of watching others serve Adam, Zachary noticed that his brother’s greatest joy came from helping others. It was the little things: from setting the table to setting up events at the local community center. Last year, it hit Zachary — if his brother could give back a little, then the opportunity for the developmentally disabled community to give back collectively was great.

Last year, Zachary started Special People Helping Others, or SpPHO. Group members attend SpPHO-sponsored activities and community events to sell 3-for-1 Bracelets. It’s called the 3-for-1 because for every bracelet sold, three causes can be helped: SpPHO, Meals on Wheels and Doctors Without Borders, an international medical and humanitarian aid organization. SpPHO is a group that helps people such as Zachary’s brother by letting them help others.

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Taylor hopes to send 30,000 teddy bears to children in hospitals across the U.S. by September

If you’ve been in the hospital or had a family member or friend there, you know how lonely and scary it can be. Once visiting hours are over, the levity and the hugs stop. But, if it were up to Taylor Crabtree, the hugs would last all night.

When Taylor was 7 years old she started TayBear. Like many little girls, Taylor and her friends made hairclips to sell for extra money. She didn’t just go out and blow the money, though. Instead, she used it to buy teddy bears for kids in the hospital with cancer and chronic blood diseases.

Taylor’s goal was to buy 50 bears for her local hospital. But, she couldn’t resist the letters from kids (and kids at heart) asking her for more bears to hug at night. Now, at 17, Taylor has donated nearly 21,000 teddy bears to Hematology/Oncology departments across the country.

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Tara Suri, 16, hopes to help to young children around the world achieve their full potential.

Bake sales and recycling are common fundraising tactics in middle school. But Tara Suri wasn’t baking cupcakes for just any common cause. Her cause was hope, literally.

When Tara was 13, she was more than saddened by her trip to India with her family. From her sadness sprung the idea of trying to help the orphans in India and Sudan whom she saw abandoned by their parents, sometimes found in garbage dumps. Tara started H.O.P.E., or Helping Orphans Pursue Education. It aims to give kids the opportunity to achieve their full potential with the basics, like a sturdy roof over their heads, that Tara and her friends sometimes took for granted back in Scarsdale, New York.

Now, at 16, she has expanded her cause with an umbrella organization called Aandolan, which means “a movement for change” in Hindi. Through that fundraising group, Tara now runs Turn Your World Around and Connect a Kid along with H.O.P.E., and a lot of it for kids growing up continents away who are in sad situations.

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Alexander Heffner also hosts a radio show, broadcasting from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.

This year, 44 million Americans ages 18 to 29 will be eligible to vote. The youth vote will account for about a quarter of the entire electorate, which means the candidates are focused on getting young people to the polls. So is the founder of Scoop08, Alexander Heffner – but in a different way.

Heffner, an 18-year-old high school senior, organized 300 student volunteers from high schools and colleges from diverse regions and ideological backgrounds to work on what he calls “a new kind of newspaper.” Each student is dispatched on issue-based rather than horse race-focused beats, like “Libertarian Party,” “Rhetoric” and “Social Networking.” The idea behind Scoop08: young people covering the issues in a smart way, but also in a way that they would tell their friends.

Scoop08 is all about young people, but Heffner realized that help from the pros only makes the youth push better. The newspaper’s advisory board is stellar: Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, National Review founder William F. Buckley and Judy Woodruff of PBS, to name a few. At Scoop08, they know and respect the rules and norms of political coverage, and know how to break them.

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Teen AIDS Ambassadors pose for a photograph in Tanzania.

Santa Monica, California, is far from Tanzania. But a group of high schoolers there makes the distance seem closer. The Crossroads Teen AIDS Ambassadors are the youngest certified educator-activists in the country working toward the eradication of the disease.

The California students bring their mountainous mission to Africa. They travel to Tanzania and other countries to help tell their young counterparts about the history of the pandemic, the virology of HIV, and the importance of safe sex. Kids from Tanzania have come to California to go through the program to experience and see inspiration of a life minus the disease.

The hours are long, the information is daunting, and the trek is substantial. But from the AIDS Ambassadors’ perspectives, even their small hands can help start move the mountain.

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