Teen sisters working to support refugee youth in their community
Lily, 17, and Evie, 15, who live in Atlanta, honed their cooking skills on Food Network’s Chopped Junior (Lily), and Fox’s Masterchef Junior (Evie), and decided to put their expertise to good use participating in a baking campaign to help turn their homestate of Georgia blue.
“Once you get a taste for making a difference in the world, you can’t stop,” Lily tells Yahoo Life.
After the success of the Bake Back Better campaign, the sisters started to think about other people they could help.They reached out to New American Pathways, an Atlanta-based nonprofit organization that helps refugees.
New American Pathways told the teens that they would appreciate it if they could fill 100 backpacks with school supplies for the refugee children. “We ended up getting 240 filled backpacks,” says Lily. “Knowing that each backpack would be held by a kid that might have not had a backpack at all felt really good, and I was excited to know that hopefully we’d be able to fuel their love of learning.”
No matter how small you might feel like your voice is,” says Lily, “just know that you can make a difference in your community. You just have to go for it.”
Video Transcript
LILY BABCOCK: Knowing that we might be able to help some of those new Americans find a little bit of comfort in such a time of turbulence and trauma is super exciting.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm Lily, and I'm 17, and I'm from Atlanta, Georgia. And this is my sister.
EVIE BABCOCK: I'm Evie, and I'm 15.
LILY BABCOCK: I was selected to be on "Chopped Junior."
EVIE BABCOCK: And I was selected to go on "MasterChef Junior." Both of us obviously love cooking, and we are both very passionate about the political state of Georgia, and how we really wanted to make some change.
LILY BABCOCK: When you're too young to vote, I know that I was feeling a lot of sadness and hopelessness in the election cycle because I felt like I was too young to make a change. You can find a little way to do something that you're really passionate about. The impact from it will follow.
We aren't old enough to vote, so we decided that we could use our skills to help bake cupcakes and raise money.
EVIE BABCOCK: It was called Bake Back Better. So it was just raising money with cupcakes incentive to Georgia blue, basically.
LILY BABCOCK: Georgia went blue--
EVIE BABCOCK: Yeah.
LILY BABCOCK: --and it was awesome.
Once you get a taste for making a difference in the world, you can't stop. We started thinking, how could we apply this to other communities that we care about? Refugee resettlement and volunteer organizations are kind of the unsung heroes of large refugee populations.
New American Pathways is one of the refugee resettlement programs in Atlanta, more specifically in the Clarkston area, which is the most diverse square mile in the entire US. It's just anything that a new family might need, they'll provide.
We reached out. They said they would really appreciate 100 filled backpacks. I would post on my Instagram and my Snapchat story and say, hey, if you donate, I'll give you cookies. We ended up getting 240 filled backpacks. Having school supplies that you're excited to use was a really big push towards my love of learning.
EVIE BABCOCK: If you can provide that joy in any way to someone who has just arrived to America and who doesn't have the resources to have that same experience, that's really special. Hopefully, we'd be able to help fuel their love of learning.
LILY BABCOCK: With what is going on in Afghanistan, they are expecting a lot of new refugees to come in. New American Pathways is helping to get them out, as well. Imagine being thrust into a school situation where you don't know anyone and you're just stricken with all of these emotions from having to flee. And then on top of that, you don't have the supplies to feel confident in yourself. If we can make it a little bit better for them or a little easier, that would just be worth everything. No matter how small you might feel like your voice is, just know that you can make a difference. You just have to go for it.
