Deadline: 16-Mar-25
In partnership with The Hershey Company and Hershey’s Heartwarming Project, YSA will award Hershey Heartwarming Young Heroes Youth Grants for Youth Service Month & Global Youth Service Day 2025 projects.
Funding Information
- This year, youth may apply for grants of either $250 or $500 depending on the number of youths who will be participating as volunteers (project planners, project leaders, and day-of volunteers).
- $250 grantees will be required to engage at least 25 other youth as volunteers while $500 grantees have a 50-youth volunteer minimum requirement.
- A total of $50,000 in grants will be awarded.
What are they looking for?
- Proposed projects must be youth-designed and youth-led;
- Projects must take place during Youth Service Month (April 11-May 11, 2025), with some activity on Global Youth Service Day (April 25-27, 2025) strongly encouraged;
- Projects must take place in and impact the community where the youth applicant lives;
- Youth applicants must engage youth from different social backgrounds as volunteers (including, but not limited to young people of color; young people from low-income families or neighborhoods; and other youth who are usually served, but not asked to serve such as youth with disabilities, youth in the foster care system, youth from military families, youth in the juvenile justice system, youth who are immigrants or refugees, youth who are English Language Learners, etc.) as well as first-time volunteers;
- Youth applicants must engage their peers as volunteers throughout all facets of their proposed project—from planning and implementation to celebration and recognition.
Eligibility Criteria
- If you meet the following criteria, you are eligible to apply for this year’s grant:
- You are a young person between the ages of 5 and 25
- If you are a teacher or leader at a nonprofit who has a group of youth interested in applying, please ask your youth changemakers to select one of their peers to complete the application
- You live in the United States (including American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Washington, D.C.) or Canada
- You are able to implement your proposed project during Global Youth Service Day (April 25-27, 2025) or Youth Service Month (April 11-May 11, 2025)
- If you have already been awarded a 2025 Stop Hunger Youth Innovation Grant or a 2025 Sodexo Stop Hunger Grant, you are not eligible to receive a 2025 Hershey Heartwarming Young Heroes Youth Grant.
For more information, visit YSA.