JAMES WOOD

A TEEN MAKING A DIFFERENCE

EightEEn-yEar-old James “J.D.” Wood serves his community like the average person does his or her laundry – regularly, and without a second thought.

“Sunday’s usually the day when I do all my service,” Wood says, with a shrug. “Usually it’s pretty easy for me to fit it in. I just do it.”

The high school senior fulfills an impressive assemblage of volunteer obligations, on top of Advanced Placement classes and a lengthy roster of extracurricular activities – soccer, ski team, lacrosse, presiding over the debate team. Effective time management seems to come as naturally to him as being of service.

Wood’ s most enterprising achievement is Juniors Connecting Seniors, a service organization he founded with a friend last fall. After a Wi-Fi troubleshooting phone call with his grandfather, Wood identified a need – senior citizens struggling to master basic functions on their mobile devices, such as setting reminders or responding to text messages – and got to work determining how to fill it. Now, he’s greeted weekly at Mequon retirement community Ovation Sarah Chudnow with a sign-up sheet of residents needing tech services.

“J.D. has mentioned that the most valuable lesson he has learned from serving others is the understanding that we are all human,” says Mike Snyder, one of Wood’s teachers, adding, “J.D. understands what it means to be a part of something bigger than himself, and that’s pretty cool.”

This spring, Wood was recognized by Milwaukee’s North Shore Rotary branch at its annual “Service Above Self” awards, in part for his work with Pivotal Directions, an organization that brings Mequon-area students to underserved communities in Jamaica and Guatemala for week-long service expeditions. While in Jamaica last summer, Wood’s group befriended a local man named Addo who struggled to afford tuition for his remaining university requirements.

“I was thinking, we all brought money. Maybe we could help him pay for bus fare,” Wood says. “Turns out [tuition] was only about $400 for the whole year.”

Wood rallied the group and collected enough to fund a year of school for Addo, who completed his final exams this spring.

As he begins his senior year at University School of Milwaukee, Wood is working on a succession plan for Juniors Connecting Seniors and preparing for his second Pivotal Directions trip, this time to Guatemala. He aspires to study engineering in college and eventually participate in Engineers Without Borders, using his math and science skills to build “something that would make somebody’s life easier.” Whatever that “something” might turn out to be is almost unimportant to Wood. He just wants to do something helpful. –