Meet Our May Super Citizen

Celebrating Reston kids who are making differences in our community

By Lisa Johnson, Staff Writer

Julisa at the Youth Art Walk at Dulles Airport. Photo contributed by Julisa Obregon

Meet Julisa, a senior at South Lakes High School with a passion for art and for making a difference in her community. Julisa heads the Students of Art Reston (SOAR) club at her school where she helps put on art shows for the club members and develops art-related projects in her community. She is passionate about creating art that uplifts others, makes them happy, and brings them hope.

Julisa joined Students of Art Reston her sophomore year just as it was beginning. Since then, she has become president of the club and has helped it grow in both membership and community engagement. Most commonly, the Students of Art Reston volunteers with residents of The Hunters Woods fellowship house, a retirement community. There, they work with residents to make all different types of art projects and put on art shows with the residents’ work. “It’s really fun for the residents,” she explained. “They not only get to be creative and have fun making art, but they also say that they really love getting to spend time with young people.”

Julisa also leads SOAR’s engagement with Terraset elementary’s “Go Green Club” where they have helped make booklets for their endangered species project and worked with students at the school in other art-related ways. “It’s so fun getting to volunteer at elementary schools,” she says, “I remember when I was that age. It was so exciting when we got to do projects with high schoolers. It feels great to be able to pay it forward.”

When asked about the importance of kindness in a community, Julisa shared, “It is really important to me to be happy and to help make other people happy. To me, bringing people into a creative space is a form of kindness because it gives people a chance to express themselves and find joy when they might not otherwise have the resources to create things on their own. I think it’s so important to treat people the way that you would want to be treated because it helps everyone have a more joyful and fulfilling life.”

Do you know a young person in Reston under 18 who has made a difference in their community? Scan the QR code below to nominate them as a Super Citizen in an upcoming issue of The Reston Letter.