However, she already has begun work to help some the families of soldiers fighting for this country’s freedom.
The junior is working to organize Loving Arms, a non-profit organization designed to assist the offspring of fallen and wounded soldiers.
Warren, 16, is the daughter of Stephen and Nicole Warren of Douglasville. Her father is an active duty Army soldier who has served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Sometimes, he doesn’t come home with some of the people he was best friends with,” she said.
He is scheduled to return to Afghanistan next year, she said.
The 11th-grader said she originated the idea for the project at age 11. She has actively worked on the project since 2009 and is in the final stages of filing paperwork needed to register it as a nonprofit organization.
She recalled wanting to form a full-fledged charity after working to collect about $5,000 in long-distance phone cards for soldiers.
“It was good motivation to do a charity,” Warren said.
Loving Arms will accept “anything willing to be donated,” she said. That could include everything from goods to money.
Warren said she sees a major need for the service in the future despite the wind down of American military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“It’s still a need because there are still service members coming home,” she said.
Her charity will join a wide range of local and national charities which seek to help the families of service members. Some listed by the Gary Sinise Foundation include:
- Air Compassion For Veterans. This Virginia Beach, Va.-based group’s mission is to ensure that wounded service members or their family members “have on-request access to charitable airline travel — or other forms of specialized medically related long-distance air/ground transportation — for purposes of medical consultation, evaluation, counseling or treatment including the many and diverse important activities involved in recovery, rehabilitation and re-entry into a productive and fulfilling civilian life,” the Sinise web site states.
- Fisher House Foundation, a Rockville, Md.-based foundation which “is best known for the network of comfort homes built on the grounds of major military and VA medical centers.
- Hope for the Warriors, an Annandale, Va.-based Hope For The Warriors which works to “enhance quality of life for U.S. service members and their families nationwide who have been adversely affected by injuries or death in the line of duty,” according to the web site. Among the services it offers are education and care for spouses and families of service members as they seek to reunite with a wounded soldier.