Alumni Stories
LAURA NOBLE
Since graduating from Del Campo High School in 2013, I have continued to see the skills, experience, and passion that being a part of Kids Helping Kids inspired in me for business and impacting others. I have now graduated from Oregon State University with degrees in Management, Sustainability, and International Business, where I was able to spend my international focus at the Wien University of Economics and Business in Vienna, Austria. During my time at Oregon State, I had the incredible opportunity to represent the college of business both in Nicaragua on a micro-financing program, as well as in Ethiopia and Uganda, working with a partnering NGO on sustainable non-profit development, educational opportunities for children, and empowering women fighting obstetric fistula through the advancement of self-sustaining economic opportunities. I have now had the opportunity to work in the Aerospace and Technology industries at Amazon Web Services in Business Operations. As I look forward to my future, I cannot help but pause and give thanks to Kid Helping Kids and the investment I made at 17 years old. My life changed the minute I started working with the team that built this now thriving organization. To see the sustainable impact that Kids Helping Kids is making fills me with joy and energizes me never to stop being a change-maker!
JOEY CISNEROS
Since graduating from Del Campo in 2014, I have stepped away from the Business degree I was pursuing at William Jessup University. I am now attending Northwest University, finishing my undergrad in Leadership Studies in the spring of 2019, and receiving my certification to be a certified Pastor. Kids Helping Kids set a foundation in my life for serving and loving others. With the experience this organization gave me as a 17 & 18-year-old high school student, I have successfully run youth conferences, worked with multi-million dollar corporations, and continue to work within the community as a leader representing Christ. I currently work full-time at Destiny Church in the youth department leading and mentoring Jr. High and High School students at 12 different schools in the Sacramento region. KHK changed my life three years ago when I had the privilege of leading within the organization; today, I can have the same effect on someone else’s life every day. Without this organization, I would not be the person I am today!
SARAH WARNER
I am pursuing my bachelor’s degree in Economics and Accounting at the University of California, Santa Barbara. During my first year at UCSB, I became heavily involved in my residence hall. I worked as a desk attendant and was elected to be the Vice President of my hall council. My work in the residence hall included planning events for the residents and working on volunteer initiatives to aid community service organizations on campus. I have always enjoyed being involved and trying new things, so during my second year, I joined the Triathlon Team and became a Campaign Manager for Campus United, a political party on campus. Campus United was extremely successful and elected over 80% of all candidates into respective positions in Associate Students, including the President. I now work as a Peer Mentor for the College of Letters and Science and at the most popular Mexican restaurant in downtown Santa Barbara. I mentor first-year students throughout the academic school year by using my extensive training and University resources to support mentees in adjusting to college academics, financial stresses, and social life. I am a member of the Undergraduate Accounting Society and recently received internship offers from all the Big 4 Accounting firms. I will be interning in San Francisco with Deloitte this summer. I believe that Kids Helping Kids gave me a unique experience that tremendously helped prepare me for my future career. KHK taught me to be a great leader, communicate with business professionals, and balance working with the school. I have not yet been able to find something that gives me the same joy and feeling of purpose that Kids Helping Kids did. She feels so lucky to have been a part of Kids Helping Kids and wishes the future members the best of luck. Enjoy every moment!
REBECCA FOLEY
After graduating, I started my undergraduate career at the Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon. I’m now a sophomore Family and Human Services major, pursuing minors in Psychology and Nonprofit Administration. In my freshman year, I volunteered at the local Boys and Girls Club and a University of Oregon children’s center, where I now work as a teacher’s aide. Last summer, I got a fantastic internship at Stanford Youth Solutions with the help of connections and experience from Kids Helping Kids. There I ran a backpack drive, just like I had in KHK, for their 700+ youth clients, and worked daily in Development and Marketing, where I completed tasks like revamping the thank you letters that go out to their thousands of donors every year. For now, I’m spending my time as a full-time student, working as a teacher’s aide, a cabinet member of the Honors College Student Association, and of course, always keeping my eyes open for anything else I can do to fulfill my passion for service and making a difference that KHK instilled in me.
KYLE KNIGHT
I was the 2017 Chief Financial Officer for Kids Helping Kids Sacramento. I now attend the University of California, Davis and received a full ride scholarship to continue my educational success. I am on the UC Davis Mock trial team and I am excited to continue my love for the courtroom. I am using the skills I learned in Kids Helping Kids Sacramento to solve the homeless epidemic in Sacramento County. I am working with supervisors and Sacramento developers to create a tiny home initiative as a means for solving homelessness. I am a proud KHK alumni and hope to be a politician and a lawyer one day.
MEGAN WHITNEY
I currently attend Westmont College in Santa Barbara and plan on majoring in Communications. I absolutely love it here, and I believe that my involvement in Kids Helping Kids played an integral role in helping me get where I am today. I work with kids nearly every day of the week, with both my current job and with Kids Club on Thursday nights, showing love to them in true KHK fashion. I have made a few connections down here through Kids Helping Kids, especially since there is a branch of the organization. Kids Helping Kids has influenced me in too many ways to count! After being the COO, I feel I can tackle any challenge. The mentorship I received from Mr. Gordon and Mr. Lottes pushed me to become a harder worker and a better person. My work ethic, confidence in front of a room, ability to lead my peers in any given task, and my drive to get a task done to the best of my ability can all be attributed to the time I spent with Kids Helping Kids during my senior year. I wouldn’t have traded it for the world, as time-consuming as it was. I loved being a part of KHK, and I miss every aspect of it so much. I can’t wait to see the great things that this organization will be able to do in the coming years!
DILLON HILL
By joining KHK, I was able to take the skills I had and expand upon them to help the organization continue doing amazing things. I carried those skills into my personal goals and decided to start my own non-profit charity. Since starting a year and a half ago, we’ve raised over 70,000 dollars. We bring virtual reality to assisted living facilities, children’s hospitals, and people with disabilities so they can experience life beyond their hospital beds or wheelchair. I also used those skills to co-found a startup, start my own business, and pick up an IT Specialist job while attending UC Davis full-time. Recently, my best friend Chris, who provided the childhood experience that inspired my charity, was re-diagnosed with Leukemia. I’ve decided to drop out of school to begin an online media company to allow Chris and other people to experience the best things in life while they still can. We’ve already gathered 250,000+ supporters in the first week, but I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the skills I learned in KHK.
MADDIE SANFILIPPO
I attend Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, CA and will graduate in December with a Bachelor’s in Communication Studies. Throughout my time at LMU, I have been involved in several philanthropic efforts, and even got the opportunity to join Love, Light, and Melody in Nicaragua for 2 weeks after my sophomore year. I got the opportunity to work with children at the LMU Children’s Center for three years. Through KHK I was given the opportunity of connecting with Gene Stonebarger, a generous partner of KHK, and got the privilege of interning in his law office. I am currently the lead director of LMU’s chapter of Delight Student Ministries, a women’s group that fosters women coming together in community and faith. I was also the former Director of Activities for my sorority, Delta Gamma. I am now working at Kendra Scott as an associate, which is a remarkably philanthropic corporation that has given 2.9 million dollars towards philanthropic efforts this year alone! My time as the COO of Kids Helping Kids has given me so much that I still look back on with gratitude. It showed me how important it is to remember why you do what you do, rather than focusing on what you do; it strengthened my passion for encouraging and working alongside children. It gave me valuable work and leadership experience in events and time management; it introduced me to a place my heart will always beat for Nicaragua. Most of all has given me lifelong friends.
CASEY ROBINSON
I go to the university of Hawaii at Mānoa, currently majoring in astronomy, but I’m changing it to pre-med, hoping to be a surgeon in the medical field one day. Kids Helping Kids definitely pushed my boundaries as a student and teenager on how I can impact the people around me and showed me my passion for helping, and that’s why I chose the medical field
FAITH WYLEY
For most of my life, I’ve always known I wanted to help people in any way I could. But after I had the opportunity to be a part of KHK, I realized how much of an impact I had the ability to make in kids’ lives, and I decided I wanted to make that my main focus. I have always wanted to be a nurse, but I recently changed my path in what I want to do with my life. I’ve decided to become an elementary school teacher for 2nd graders or students with special needs. I’m also going to become an Applied Behavioral Analyst, which is a therapist that works with kids who have Autism. My career choice was heavily influenced by KHK and many other things, like my trip to Zambia in 2016 and this fall, when I went to a camp to connect with child burn survivors and their families. I’m incredibly grateful for KHK, especially having had the opportunity of being the Director of Outreach. I believe that without that job, I would not be so driven to connect with and impact younger lives.
SOFIA DECIO
After graduating in 2016, I started my undergraduate career at the University of California, Los Angeles, and I am currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in International Development Studies with a minor in entrepreneurship. I work at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, facilitating recruiting of their full-time MBA students, and I am also a business development intern at Expert Dojo, a business accelerator in Santa Monica. I am active in UCLA’s Undergraduate Business Society as well as Bruin Entrepreneurs, among other extracurricular activities. I find that Kids Helping Kids continues to impact many aspects of my life today, whether it be inspiring me to pursue philanthropic opportunities abroad or allowing me to stand out among my peers. Kids Helping Kids is something I am constantly thankful for, and I know that I wouldn’t be equipped with the same levels of professionalism, motivation and leadership that I have had it not been for KHK. I find that the most important thing I drew from Kids Helping Kids was a sense of purpose, and I am constantly driven to find opportunities that feed my soul in that same way.
LEXI EWEN
I am a junior at UC San Diego majoring in International Business. I’ve been on the college student council for the last 2 years and also have a few leadership positions in my sorority. I just got offered a position as a Growth Marketing Intern for a startup called JoyRun, and I really think my experience as Director of Marketing for KHK helped me get the job. In my interview I was asked about previous volunteering and marketing background as well as past leadership roles, and it was hard for me to not talk about KHK the whole time because it truly gave me so many valuable experiences.
