To advance their mission to support and empower refugees in their local community, co-founders of Rallying for Refugees, juniors Anvi Saxena, Aashi Oswal, and Ellen Li, received the Build a Bright Future vision grant by Frigo Cheese Heads. 

“I chose to apply for the Frigo Cheese Heads grant because I saw their track record of working with young entrepreneurs and I was really inspired by that,” Saxena said. “It aligns with our mission with Rallying for Refugees and because of the partner program they offer which provides us a support community and the grant as well I decided to apply for the grant.”

Initially, the Rallying for Refugees co-founders faced challenges applying for grants as they are a student run non-profit organization.

“Since we are an official non-profit, we have been applying to a lot of grants monthly but there are a lot of restrictions because we are minors,” Oswal said. “The Build a Bright Future vision grant was one of the grants that gave us an opportunity to apply as teenagers so we did it, we applied.”

The initiative displayed by Rallying for Refugees was among the many determining qualities considered by Frigo Cheese Heads when awarding the grant.

“Rallying for Refugees cofounder Anvi Saxena showed great promise in her application,” Saputo USA marketing manager Nicole Austin said. “We were impressed by the organization’s clear mission and positive impact they’d already made in their community and the lives of so many refugees. Plus, Anvi’s passion and enthusiasm for the organization was palpable and helped her application stand out.”

The co-founders plan to use the money received through the grant to empower young refugees.

“We’re going to use this grant for helping refugee children,” Saxena said. “So far, our focus in the organization has been guiding refugee families. We realized that the potential of refugee children goes under served and that’s why we are using this money to help their education and help them overall.”

In addition to receiving the money, the co-founders had the opportunity to tour the Saputo USA offices and visit the Saputo team.

“My favorite part of visiting Saputo’s offices was definitely seeing how different the offices are compared to other office buildings I have been to before,” Li said. “They were all super welcoming and we got to taste test some of the products they design in their kitchen. We got to meet so many new people and I am very grateful for that experience.”

For Austin, the chance to give the co-founders a tour of their offices allowed her to showcase the young entrepreneurs’ work.

“We were honored to host the Rallying for Refugees co-founders at Saputo’s Dallas office,” Austin said. “It was a highlight getting to recognize them in front of our team and shine a light on all their incredible work. We’re so inspired by them and can’t wait to see where they take Rallying for Refugees with the help of their Frigo Cheese Heads Build a Bright Future vision grant.”

Meeting members of the Saputo USA team allowed the co-founders to make valuable connections to further their nonprofit’s mission.

“By meeting the team at Saputo USA and Frigo Cheese Heads we got so many contacts and they referred us to people who have been really helpful already,” Oswal said. “We want to use this opportunity to gain more awareness for our non-profit and use this as leverage for sponsorship and businesses to really help us get more options.”

This story was originally published on Wingspan on April 12, 2024.