AJ Combs

AJ was born in Virginia in 1999, June 5th. He moved to Vermont in 2005. He has a big family with two older brothers and two older sisters. He has been involved with his community church for several years. AJ is currently 14. At first AJ was forced to volunteer by his parents, but he started to enjoy doing it so he did it more and more. .

AJ does most of his volunteering at Christ Memorial Church and with the NETS program. The NETS program goes around the world and helps save lives by providing food, water, shelter, education, etc.. He went to Boston to help clean up after the Boston bombing. He also helped clean up Lake Champlain and around his community after hurricane Irene and Sandy. AJ will sometimes go along with the NETS program to see first hand what its like to not have everything that you need to stay alive. One highlight for AJ is seeing how happy the people he helps are to get the supplies they need to survive. "Making the less fortunate people happy is one of the main reasons I volunteer."

He also helps out at Christ Memorial Church. There he makes sure that the building is clean before services and that everyone has what they need to be able to get through the service. Another thing AJ does to help is performing for kids at a youth event on fridays. He does all of this for free and sometimes he even pays the organization to let him help.

At his middle school, AJ and a couple of friends planned a blood drive all by themselves and ran it. One challenge for AJ was getting people to sign up for the blood drive. It took many hours to organize it, then they had to make a website, hand out flyers, and even go door to door trying to get people to sign up. Although AJ did not want to spend his time volunteering when he was younger, he now will do anything he can to help out.