The initiative
Gifts That Smile is a student-led initiative co-founded by Athena and Briana Zhong in 2020 to address the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak. Over the past year, Athena and Briana — along with passionate friends, Jiawei Zhao, Fiona Zhao, and Maria Haque — worked hard from project initiation and planning, to project execution. This consisted of numerous hours of product research online, as well as phone calls and emails to organizations to seek for gifts-in-kind. They have assembled and distributed over 400 care packages to community members in need.