Bellaire HS senior named ‘young hero’
She and her twin sister help underprivileged residents with their FreshHub app, a nonprofit that collects and distributes food
When Bellaire High School senior Annie Zhu won the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes, she was in disbelief.
She received the award for her work helping underprivileged residents by co-founding the Fresh Hub app, a nonprofit that collects food from Houston-area grocery stores and bakeries and distributes them to neighborhoods that are considered food deserts.
She also helped create Readiness Across Mathematics, an organization that works toward improving test scores and raising interest in math for students in underprivileged neighborhoods.
Zhu was in disbelief, she said, because all of the projects were team efforts. The award is for all of them, Zhu believes.
“My projects, Fresh Hub and Readiness Across Mathematics, would not have been possible without the parlayed efforts from a diverse group of people,” said Zhu. “To me, the Gloria Barron Prize celebrates us all by recognizing the importance of these programs, which I am tremendously grateful for.”
Zhu is one of 15 winners of the award that recognizes, “inspiring, public-spirited young people from diverse backgrounds” across North America. In the 20 years since the award was created by author T.A. Barron, 498 students have been honored.
One of Fresh Hub’s co-founders is Zhu’s twin sister, Shirley Zhu. Together, they are looking to expand the project.
“First, we have been training younger volunteers to continue our work even after we graduate,” Annie Zhu said. “And second, we are starting to work with students in other cities to potentially set up other branches of Fresh Hub in other regions.”
To date, Fresh Hub has collected 10,000 pounds of food and distributed it to more than 1,400 people. The twins were inspired to create Fresh Hub after volunteering at a homeless shelter and noticing they primarily served canned food. They also saw the amount of discarded fresh food after helping repair a grocery store hit by Hurricane Harvey.
Annie Zhu first coded the Fresh Hub app that notifies users of the monthly food markets. Then, Fresh Hub and its team of 100 student volunteers partnered with the Houston Health Department and the nonprofit Second Servings to connect with stores such as Trader Joe’s that donate surplus food.
Annie Zhu plans on attending a four-year college next semester with a double major in computer science and education, She said her hope is to deepen her “knowledge of society and to increase my capacity to help the community.”