Today we’d like to introduce you to Sasha Ray.
Hi Sasha, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Light Up Lives began with an idea that my co-founders, Aashna Parihar, Dia Chanana, and I had as freshmen in high school. The three of us wanted to create an outlet where we could give back to our community in a meaningful and positive way. As we started learning more about existing aid organizations and the ways communities are supported, we noticed a gap that really stuck with us.
We saw an abundance of organizations doing incredibly important work around the things people need to survive: food, water, healthcare, shelter, and other essential resources. We believed then, and still believe, that those resources are absolutely vital. But seeing how much of aid is understandably centered around survival made us ask ourselves a different question: If people are being provided with what they need to stay alive, what are they being given that makes them want too?
That question became the foundation of Light Up Lives. We began thinking about the things people need to feel human: the everyday parts of life that many of us don’t even think of as commodities or privileges because they are simply normal to us. A toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, a hairbrush, getting your hair done, having a Halloween costume, or being able to celebrate a holiday with your community are things many of us experience without a second thought. But for someone struggling to meet their most basic needs, those same things can become inaccessible luxuries. We realized that there was an opportunity to help make some of those ordinary experiences accessible again. These things may not be necessary for survival, but they can restore dignity, confidence, comfort, joy, and a sense of normalcy.
What especially resonated with us was that these needs are universal. We didn’t want to create an organization that served only one particular group or community. Everyone deserves to feel cared for, valued, and human, especially during difficult circumstances. That idea became the foundation of Light Up Lives. Even our name came from that purpose: we wanted to do the small things that could literally help light up someone’s life.
Over time, that mission has grown far beyond hygiene products. With a leadership team of 9 directors and 10 representatives, all from different high schools across our community, we’ve intentionally built Light Up Lives around representing and understanding as many different parts of our community as possible. That perspective has allowed us to respond to both visible and often overlooked needs. We’ve collected more than 100 hair-care items to help children with different hair types receive professional hair services before going back to school, assembled 160 Father’s Day care baskets in partnership with Ronald McDonald House Charities for families spending the holiday in the hospital, and collected more than 1,000 donations of clothing, canned goods, water, and other essentials for flood relief when Kerr County was in need. But our work isn’t limited to moments when there is an obvious crisis or a public call for help. We also try to listen for the quieter needs within our community and find ways to uplift people whose struggles may not always be visible. We’ve provided Halloween costumes and face paint for children who otherwise might not be able to participate, organized Thanksgiving celebrations to create a sense of community and belonging alongside providing food, and organized Christmas toy drives and other community initiatives. Each project looks different, but they all come back to the same idea: helping make the ordinary experiences that can become inaccessible luxuries feel accessible again.
For us, Light Up Lives has never been about simply giving someone an item. It’s about recognizing that there are parts of someone’s life that are easy to overlook when we’re focused only on survival. We want the people we serve to know that their comfort, confidence, joy, dignity, and sense of belonging matter too. What started as three freshmen wanting to find a way to give back has grown into a foundation centered around a simple belief: people deserve more than the resources that keep them alive. They deserve the things that remind them why life is worth experiencing, celebrating, and living.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It definitely hasn’t always been a smooth road. We’re all high school students with our own classes, extracurriculars, jobs, and commitments, and we attend different schools, so finding times when our entire leadership team can meet and work together can be challenging. Because of that, we’ve had to find ways to make an impact even when we can’t always devote as much time in person. One example is In the Light, our bi-monthly magazine highlighting local nonprofits, small businesses, and other people like us making an impact in our community. Creating online initiatives like the magazine has allowed us to continue connecting people with organizations, stories, and resources even when coordinating an entire team of high school students isn’t always easy.
At the same time, we’ve learned that good intentions alone aren’t enough to make an impact. Like any nonprofit, we need funding to be able to provide resources and serve our community in larger capacities. Donation drives have shown us just how incredible our community can be when we ask for help, but fundraising has been a different challenge. It can be much harder to ask people for money than it is to ask them to donate an item, especially as high school students. Planning fundraisers, figuring out what will actually work, and balancing that with everything else we have going on has definitely been a learning curve.
However, those challenges have taught us how to adapt. We’ve learned to divide responsibilities, communicate across schools and schedules, create initiatives that can continue online, and find creative ways to fund the work we want to do. Building something meaningful doesn’t mean everything will go according to plan. It means figuring out how to keep moving forward when it doesn’t.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about The Light Up Lives Foundation ?
At its core, Light Up Lives is a youth-led nonprofit focused on addressing the needs that can easily be overlooked when we talk about helping people. We believe that aid shouldn’t stop at what someone needs to survive. It should also consider what someone needs to feel human: dignity, confidence, joy, belonging, and the ability to participate in the ordinary experiences that so many of us take for granted.
What sets us apart is the breadth of what we consider a need. We aren’t limited to one type of service or one specific population. We try to respond to both the visible needs that communities ask for and the quieter needs that may not come with a public call for help.
We’re also proud that Light Up Lives is built by and for students across our community. Our leadership team includes students from different high schools, which allows us to bring different perspectives and reach communities beyond our individual campuses. We’ve also expanded our work beyond traditional service projects through initiatives like In the Light, our bi-monthly magazine highlighting local nonprofits, small businesses, and other people making an impact in our community. We want to create not only direct assistance, but also connections between people who want to help and the organizations and individuals already doing meaningful work.
More than anything, I’m proud that our organization has stayed true to the meaning behind its name. “Light Up Lives” isn’t just about providing something someone needs. It’s about creating moments where someone feels seen, valued, included, or simply able to experience something that should be ordinary. Whether that is a hair appointment before the first day of school, a Halloween costume, a holiday celebration, or something as simple as a hygiene product, we want our work to remind people that their quality of life matters too.
Any big plans?
One of the biggest transitions ahead for Light Up Lives is also one that we’ve been intentionally preparing for since we started it. The three of us co-founders are now seniors, and we know that soon we’ll be leaving for college and moving into different parts of our lives. From the beginning, we intentionally built our leadership team to include students from different grade levels, especially juniors and underclassmen, because we never wanted Light Up Lives to depend on the three of us being there forever.
Our goal is to pass the organization into the hands of people who have the time, energy, and ability to truly lead it through its next chapter, rather than trying to hold onto leadership from college and eventually having the organization fall out. We still plan to be involved and available to support the next generation of leaders, especially during those first few years, but we want them to have the freedom to make Light Up Lives their own and take it in directions we may not have imagined.
I personally think one of the most meaningful parts of leadership is realizing that your job isn’t just to build something yourself. It’s to build something that other people are capable of carrying forward. We’re incredibly proud of what the three of us created, but we’ll be even prouder if Light Up Lives continues to grow after we leave because we inspired other students to believe they could create something, lead something, make an impact of their own, and light up lives! For us, the future of The Light Up Lives Foundation is ultimately about passing the baton, not holding onto it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://light-up-lives-vercel-v4.vercel.app/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelightuplives.fdn/
