Jessica Yost is a senior at Arrowhead High school and she started a non-profit organization called the 15:30 project. The organization is designed for helping children break poverty in South Africa.

The program officially became non-profit this past September but Yost has been fundraising for about five years now.  The money Yost collects helps children in Africa to go to high school.

Yost said, “I have gone to South Africa four times and Ghana one time.”

Yost went to Africa for the first time in eighth grade solely for a vacation with her mom. But Yost said that trip changed her life.

Elle Lichte, who is also a senior at Arrowhead High School, has gone to Africa with Yost and is a big part of the organization.

Yost said, “Elle is my ‘partner in crime.’”

Yost also said, “The organization has raised $30,000 monetarily and $16,000 through donations.”

Yost has been recently nominated as America’s top youth volunteer of the year by Mr. Wieczorek.

The 15:30 project has also had many other accomplishments. Yost won the Kohls cares scholarship and was asked by a man in Ghana to come stay there for a summer.

Yost has high hopes to expand the funding through Africa to Ghana, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

The 15:30 project has a website, 1530project.org, a Twitter name, @1530project, and a facebook page, 1530 project. The organizations’ biggest fundraiser is the chocolate pizzas.

To raise money, Yost and Lichte make chocolate pizzas and sell them through AHS and the community. The program also sells homemade purses, soaps, pants, headbands, bracelets and water bottle.

Yost said, “Going Africa has changed my life and that is when I felt the need and want to help those children. They are my family.”