Congratulations to Sydney Birchard, CISV Pittsburgh Junior Branch Member, who recently received a Junior Women of Achievement Award from Pittsburgh nonprofit Cribs for Kids. The Junior Women of Achievement Award honors individuals, ages 8 to 21, for their achievements in academics, service, and leadership. Sydney, age 13, was recognized for her ambition as a young entrepreneur. She and co-founder Maeve Shaughnessy formed ALS Kids in 2015, a nonprofit that raises money for research and support of ALS patients in western Pennsylvania.
“My friend, Maeve Shaughnessy and I, co-founded our non-profit ALS Kids in 2015 after winning an entrepreneurship contest at school,” Syndey said. “We both had lost our Grandparents to ALS and wanted to help to support those patients living with ALS in Western Pennsylvania and contribute to research to end ALS in our lifetime.”
With CISV, Sydney participated in a Village in China and a Youth Meeting in Germany.
“I am inspired to be part of CISV because I genuinely love everything about CISV,” she said. “I have gone on amazing trips to China and Germany, met really cool people here and from other countries and learned so many new things about other cultures that I never knew or thought about experiencing. I enjoy getting to be involved in the community service work we do locally in Pittsburgh as well. I never even knew some of these organizations existed here. The Pittsburgh CISV chapter is just a really amazing group of people. I am going to be a CISV’er for life!”