From Toy Drives To Scholarships: How Ella’s Angels Mobilizes Youth To Serve The Community!

0:57 Warriors fall in. It's time for formation. So today I have a great guest. Her name is Ella Shabazian. She's the founder of Ella's Angels. I ran across her Instagram post recently because she is supporting veterans on an upcoming event here in the Los Angeles area. Reached out via direct message, and I really think that this is a really important episode because it speaks to a lot of the next generation youth. Ella is currently in high school, but she's taking college credits through a local community college. And uh at first, when I saw this, I thought this was being ran by a adult. Like I didn't, I thought maybe this was a college student, but Ella turns out to be in high school.

1:39 And it is an honor for me and my podcast, The Morning Formation, to be a part of Ella's journey. Because I know in the next five to 10 years, you're gonna be doing much greater things, Ella. And I just want to welcome you to the podcast today. Thank you. So, Ella, let's get started and talking about how you came about to doing this because a lot of kids your age how old are you now? I'm 16. Wow. So a lot of kids your age are busy playing video games, sports, and things like that. What you're doing right now is incredibly much larger than just what's going on in front of you in your neighborhood. How did you get started with the idea of Ella's Angels?

2:21 So originally, like ever since I was a kid, ever since I was younger, I've always liked helping people. And I just wanted like a way to help more people and different kinds of people. So me and my stepdaddy helped me with like the whole thing, and we made up Ella's Angels. And that was like my way of like saying that like young people don't need to like wait to help. They can always just start now. Yeah. So you have quite a bit of support from your parents, right? Yes. I think that's absolutely awesome. Now, the movement that you started, was there one specific thing that you wanted to focus on and it just kind of fanned out to everything else? Because from my understanding, you do everything from toy drives for children's hospitals uh to providing care packages for veterans, right?

3:06 Is there one specific thing that you wanted to focus on, or was it just general humanitarian work? It was just general humanitarian work. It started off small. It started off with like doing like local beach trash pickups in Long Beach, and then we did the toy drive, which was very successful. And then I thought of the Thanksgiving meal drive, and then it came to this Valentine's for Veterans, and then we're doing the scholarships for the students and like that are trying to go to trade school or college,$500 scholarships. So yeah, it just like in general, it is like was not focused on one main thing. Does nonprofit work run in your family? No. Okay.

3:46 So this is kind of unfamiliar territory. What how did you get started to begin with? Did you do research on Google or did you have someone like a mentor sort of help you out with the 501c registration and all that all that stuff? Yeah, I had a mentor, my dad. Your dad? Oh, that's really cool. So you have a lot of support from your from your family to get you started on this, but when you came up with El L as Angels, what does the mission of your nonprofit mean to you personally? So the mission is awareness, action, respect, and like especially from my generation. It's about turning compassion into like something real.

4:26 Yeah. That's huge. Have you been a part of other projects as well that you've kind of got off the ground from pen and paper to action? It's like the first big thing that I've done. Yeah. Well, I mean, you're only 16 years old, but man, this hell is angels. Uh, how many people do you have working with a nonprofit right now? I have quite a bit. Like, I have Pastor Johnson, I had my dad's friend, his name is Terrell, and then I have my friends that are like a part of my board. Like two friends. That's my dad. That's cool. That's cool. So you got your friend circle involved in that. When you first began, did you ever imagine that it would grow into the multifaceted organization that it is now?

5:10 Yes, that was that was like my plan from the start. I've always like wanted to do it, and I still want to make it bigger. This is just the beginning. I think that's great. Especially it's that you got your friend circle involved in that as well. And I think today's youth needs a lot more positive turn uh to really make a difference. Um, I think a lot of people don't know how to do that. So it's great that you have a platform to do that. The organization, from what I read, is known as youth-led. What's unique about giving young people the opportunity to lead these type of charitable, charitable initiatives? Young people, like my organization is to help, let's say, like a young person doesn't know how to get out in the community to help.

5:55 They can always reach out to me. I can help them do that. And I don't think that young people need to wait to show action and help out in the community. They can always start, just they need to take the step and just do it. Like I mentioned before, the things that you're doing is years beyond how old you really are. I mean, I know people in their 20s that talk about doing a nonprofit, but they never take action or they never pivot and execute. So, how do you recruit and empower other young leaders to take initiative and stay engaged? Honestly, just do it. Just if you talk about it, talking about it is not enough. You need to take the step and do it.

6:36 Even if it's a lot of work. Even and I always say, even if you feel like you're not ready, right? Yes. So, what advice would you give other young folks out there who want to start a nonprofit or lead service projects but they don't have any idea where to begin? So don't like don't wait to be older or more established. You could just always start. You need like you need to like just like you need to show that you care and that's like enough to start. And and if anyone needs help, they can always just reach out to me.

7:19 Yeah. And at the end of the show, we'll talk about where you're located because I know that you're on a LinkedIn and we have you on Instagram. We'll talk about any other social media platforms that you're on as well. I read that your Thanksgiving meal drive helped hundreds of families out there. Can you walk us through what that actually looked like and what you learned from organizing that whole project? So originally we were only supposed to be feeding 100 families, but 237 families ended up signing up. And like I was like, How am I gonna find another like 137 more turkeys in two days? Because it was like two days before. And it was at a long beach in Greeder Harvest Church. We found how to get the turkeys, and it was like very like like impactful.

8:02 Me and my my club members, my friends, and like volunteers were passing out the meals. It was very like seeing like how excited people would get and thinking that people wouldn't like have been able to have like a meal without us was the best part of it. That's so cool. You started out just thinking it would be a few families and it turned out to be over 200. That's that's huge. And the fact that you were able to adapt and overcome the inventory and make it happen is super impactful. Uh, can you tell us about the scholars program and why supporting students through scholarships matters to the uh the mission of the nonprofit? So the scholarship program is so it's for students that are like in on like underprivileged areas that are trying to go to trade school or college,$500 scholarships.

8:53 It just like me and my dad thought of that idea, and we thought it would be like a big help for people. So we just yeah, came up with that idea. You've actually kind of reached out and impacted so many different efforts out there. The initiatives that you've done is anywhere from like veterans to children's hospitals and community cleanups, like you mentioned earlier. Out of all those projects, which project has impacted you the most personally and and why why it Definitely my Thanksgiving drive. It was just seeing how many people I helped was crazy. Like I was not expecting like 237 families to sign up. Like I thought, like, cause I want to do it every year, and I'm like, let me just start off small by 100 because it's my first time doing it.

9:38 I didn't know how it would go. And seeing that I helped that many people was crazy, and just thinking that like in the future years I can help so many more people with the same thing. Yeah, it's huge. What are some of the biggest challenges you faced in running this whole nonprofit so far? And how how have you overcame those obstacles? So at first, like I was worried people wouldn't take me seriously because how of like how young I am. And organizing and asking for help was like a learning curve for me. And challenges help me become more like focused and confident. And I feel like growth comes from being uncomfortable. Yeah.

10:18 Yeah, you're speaking way beyond your years. Are you sure you're only 16? I honestly I I've struggled over the years talking to young adults and teaching them just simply how to look another person in the eye, shake their hand, like sound confident, speak up, and just have normal conversations with peep with folks out there. So I think that nonprofits like yours is not just soul-fulfilling, but a lot of your friends that are getting involved in this whole nonprofit circle is also learning themselves on how to be future leaders, how to become business owners, how to become great employees someday of big companies. And I think that's huge. I I don't know if you realize how big of an impact you're making in people's lives, not just the people that you're serving, but the people that are serving next to you as well, the young adults that are serving next to you.

11:07 How do you overall balance leadership, school, and all the responsibilities that come with running Ella's Angels? So at first it was like very like difficult, challenging because I have school, sports, homework, all of this, but I'd learned how to take these time management over like the course of like a year and a half, and I'm going a lot better at it. How do you think this is gonna help you in the future? Like what are your future goals? Like in like when I'm in college. Professionally. Yeah, like professionally in college, because I want to be a lawyer, so I feel like I feel like this can also like even when I'm let's say I become a lawyer, I can always still have this.

11:50 Like I always want to keep all things angels. Yeah. That's huge. Having a nonprofit, running a nonprofit, you're learning so much more. I think this nonprofit has more to teach you about life than so many other things that you could be doing as a young adult, whether it's playing games or just watching TV or goofing off. I'm the father of four daughters. So for me, like Ella, you're you're an inspiration. And I want to get my girls to actually listen to you talk and listen to this episode as well, uh, so that maybe they can be inspired to think bigger. I'm constantly trying to get them to think uh much bigger than the tip of their nose. And what you've got here is is, in my opinion, very impactful.

12:31 Looking ahead, what are your goals for Ella's angels in the next five years? Just keep growing, more projects, help more people, figure out more ideas, like on what I could do to help out in the community. That's pretty much it. I want to talk about too, real quick. Uh you have an upcoming event uh that is uh in part of helping the veteran community. Can you talk about that a little bit? So I'm doing Valentine's for Veterans. We're gonna be going out in Glendale, California. We're gonna be handing out bags with like a mug, chocolate, beer, and a handwritten note to all the veterans out there.

13:11 Here this is what the bag looks like. Wow. That's cool. That looks really nice. That's worth the drive to Glendale for sure. Where specifically in Glendale are you gonna be at? Are you gonna be at a veterans place or um it's Veterans Help Veterans Village. Veterans Village. It's 311 uh Salem Street, yeah. 311 Salem Street. I'll make sure I put that in the show notes as well, and I I share that because I want to try to get as much, I guess, awareness out there as possible for people in the Los Angeles area to take part in that as well. What inspired you to specifically help veterans? So, what originally inspired me is like my family history.

13:54 My grandfather was a Marine in the Vietnam War, and my great-grandfather was a um three-star rear admiral in World War II. And he also commanded the USS Steelhead and earned a silver star, and he also did two submarine divisions after that. So that's what inspired me to do this. The fact that you know all that information about your own family. I mean, I I have family members that don't know anything about uh the last generation, so that's amazing that you have all that knowledge about and appreciation, not only that, appreciation for the sacrifice that uh you know that that they gave to our country. That's says a lot about you and your character.

14:36 Ella, if you could see your movement achieve one major milestone in the next year, what do you think that would be? Seeing like a thousand people for Thanksgiving. Yeah. Yeah, probably. Do you have do you have set goals for your next projects that you're planning on upping the Anteon the next go round? Like you mentioned, the Thanksgiving one. Yeah. Have you already planned out like a year ahead and kind of figured out like this is our next goal? Yes. Yeah. How do you how do you think you're gonna get through with the throughput of getting the uh the help you need and the assistance that you need? Have you found a lot of local businesses that are willing to help as well?

15:19 For the Thanksgiving, we already like in the same area. We do it in Long Beach at the same church, and we already know the people that like supplied the food for us, and like the same people could volunteer from the church. Yeah, that's amazing that you have that community support as well. If you could inspire other young adults out there that may not have the type of parental support that you have, what would you say to them as far as providing some motivation for them to take action and do something versus just sitting around and waiting for someone to get it started for you? If they don't have parental support, they can always ask people in the community around them, maybe like a mentor or anyone, like teachers, anyone, they could always ask for help or they can like reach out to me and I could guide them through that.

16:12 I could help them with it if they Yeah. And Ellis Angels is always looking for motivated volunteers, right? Yes, always. And where are you guys mainly based out of? Uh mainly Los Angeles area. Yeah. Which which side of Los Angeles though? It depends. Like I live in Burbank, but I'm in also in Long Beach, Glendale. Okay, so you're a little bit everywhere. Yeah, you could have like virtual meetings and things like that um to kind of spearhead some of these projects, right? Yes. And if anyone's interested, they could just what's the best way to reach you? The best way to reach me is through like any of my social medias, Ella'sangels.org, my website or on LinkedIn.

17:00 Very cool. What's the most meaningful lesson that you've learned from people you've served through your work so far, Ella? The most meaningful gratitude for the sacrifices like others have made. It's like responsibility to give back, and like once you understand where your freedom comes from, you can't ignore it. Where do you get that gratitude from, you think? I think it's like from the people I surround myself from like with, sorry. From like my friends, my family. You don't sound like a girl that has a whole lot of entitlement and you're have a lot of gratitude instead for the sacrifices your parents, even your grandparents that have made, whether it be military service or just the the help that you've gotten to get this off the ground.

17:47 How do you think this journey has shaped your own sense of purpose and your leadership overall? It's made me like it's I feel like it's turned me into like a like much more of a leader than I used to be at first. I was always like when I was younger, I was always like nervous to ask for help and like in general just ask for anything. And I feel like this has made me like more confident in myself. So Yeah. Do you have any advice for parents out there that want to get their kids kind of on the same track that you're on? How do they encourage them to get off the gaming systems, to get off their butts from watching TV? How do you encourage your kids to get into these bigger, I guess, broader perspective projects that just simply help others?

18:36 So for the parents, honestly, just keep bugging your just keep bugging your child. That's what my parents always used to do. And I it really helps. Just keep bugging your children into doing like from start from little things. Tell them to get off the game, do your homework, and just just help them. Like I don't know, like I don't know how to explain it. I guess the best way to say is like you gotta plant the seed. And at some point that seed hopefully will grow and lead towards taking action and towards the motivation and encouragement that it takes to do something.

19:22 I know that myself as a father, that's kind of what I've done over the years, is just to get the buy-in, is to plant the ideas, talk positively about it, and then put yourself in position to actually witness it at the same time. Um, I've had my daughters involved in singing and all kinds of stuff, and a lot of times it's just a matter of you know, showing them a YouTube video of other kids that are doing the same thing as well. Do you have any other projects outside of like what you've already done with the Thanksgiving dinners and like the toy drives? Do you have anything else new that's coming over the horizon? Anything else new? No, but I'm also a published author besides like Ella's Angels to books.

20:06 So talk about the books. I didn't know that. That's interesting. So the first one is so it's the real life financial resource guide for youth. I wrote this because I feel like most people don't know how like most children like kids my age don't know how to like like manage money. And I didn't like know they don't teach you that at school. I didn't learn that from school. I learned that from my parents. So I just wanted to like write something that would like make these child kids aware of it and teach them. And then this one is Justice for Teens. It's like it's like you it's a book about like your rights as a teenager. Oh, are you sure you're 16?

20:46 Yes. I don't know any other 16-year-olds that wrote that have already written two books and have a non-profit. That's extremely insane to me. Talk about the the making of the books though. What inspired you specifically to do the financial book and then the justice book? Was there something that happened? The financial book is just because they don't teach it to you at school. And I wanted more kids my age to be aware of how to like manage money, to save money and learn about it. And the justice for teens, I also just wanted to put it out there, like like know like what your rights as rights are as a teenager.

21:27 Now, are those books available on Amazon or where can people purchase those books? Uh yes, they're available on Amazon, and I also have the ebooks that are on Kindle, Amazon. It's on like all platforms. You could just search up the names of both of them and they'll they'll come up. Or even if you just my name. The fact that you had the motivation to do that is impressive, Ella. I am very impressed with that. Thank you. Was there anything else about you that that we can uncover that I didn't know and I didn't know you were a published author. I think that's amazing. Is there anything else that you didn't mention? Um, I'm also a varsity tennis player at school. How do you manage that? And you're also taking college classes, right?

22:08 Wow. You are a true like role model. Do you have any plans to do like any type of mentoring or anything like that for others? I haven't really thought about it yet, but like I could always be open to it. Yeah. I mean, you are definitely you'd be a great role model, great mentor for others out there, especially your time management. You're a varsity tennis player, you're taking college classes right now, you've written two books, you're running this nonprofit that helps so many folks within your own community. I mean, at 16 years old, that's absolutely amazing, and I'm extremely proud of you, just as I'm sure your parents are very much. I don't know where you get the idea.

22:49 The idea is to like create these things. Who would you say is your top inspiration? My top inspiration, my dad. Yeah, it's all for your dad. Where's he at? Why don't you get it get in the frame here? I don't think you have room for my big fat head. Well man, hey, listen, I just wanted to say you're doing a great job, man. The fact that you have a daughter that's involved in so many different things and the support out there, it's it's really encouraging and it's refreshing to see that there are some great parents out there. I mean, Ella, you've come a long way, and I'm really honored and blessed to be a part of your journey. Like I said, if this is the first podcast you've done, which it's not, this is the second one you've done.

23:31 The second one, yeah. But this is the best one. This is the best one. This is the best one? Yeah. Well, thank you for that. I mean, I I've been doing this for like three and a half years, and um I've been so fortunate to just be a part of the conversations for people to grow. And Ella, like I'm extremely proud of you. Um extremely proud of your nonprofit. And I hope that others out there, I hope parents can have their kids listen to this episode and maybe they can get inspired to do something bigger than something that's just at the end of their street. There's a much broader community out there that needs your help and support to do real things and take real action. Ella, before we round out this episode, uh, is there anything else that you'd like to mention before we end it?

24:14 I I think to the parents, because I can speak to that, is that Ella really nailed it in that it's our job, right? That's our job is to to you know create the best people that we can create. And it takes a little extra effort, even when they said say no, that that's our job to not give up. No means not yet. And so, and Ella, I mean, the look on her face, I mean, I gotta tell you a story. So we we actually ran out of meals on Thanksgiving, right? Even we hit 237, right? So we're packing up, everything's packed up, whatever. This minivan pulls up, you know, it's falling apart, and uh, and the the mom's in there with a bunch of kids, and she's like, Oh, are there any meals left?

24:56 You know, kind of broken English. And uh, and we were like, you know what, I'm really sorry, but we don't, you know, we're all out. And Ella's like, no, no, wait a second, I have something. So she goes to her goes to her purse and pulls out a gift card for what was that grocery store? Lazy acres. Lazy Acres had donated a hundred dollar gift card to to what we were up to. She remembered took it out of her wallet, gave it to her at the end when we were done, and she was like the happiest person, you know, on the planet. And I think that I don't know, you see things like that, it's amazing. We take a lot of things for granted, you know, and it's the small things like that that I mean you probably made her entire holiday when you when you did that.

25:40 That's amazing. By the way, Dad, what is your name? Ray. Ray, thank you so much, man, for sharing that story. Um that's that's kind of the the great thing about all this. It's the little things that we do that mean so much to others that make it worth it. And I really hope that other fathers out there can can get involved and try to I really I'm pro-dad. Like I think fathers need to be more involved in their their kids' upbringing. And uh, I think I think that we kind of form out the organization and we actually make the whole adult. I always tell my 11-year-old, and I always have like seven more years with you, and then you're an adult, there's nothing I can do after that.

26:22 Yeah, so I'm doing my best to take her to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and try to round her out to where she's she's a future adult, you know, and it's uh it's important for me to do it. I when I first saw Ella's Angels, I thought I thought maybe you were like a freshman in college or you were like senior in high school, and then I realized like this is just a kid like in high school doing these amazing things, and you came across my Instagram, I saw the the uh the Veterans project coming up, Valentine's for Veterans, and I was like, this is in LA, this is really cool. And I went to the website, did a little bit of research, and I was like, really, more young adults need to hear about Ella and what she's done because I was absolutely floored.

27:06 And I honestly, as a father, I thought, man, I really hope that my girls kind of take take the same, I guess, pattern as well, and hopefully think bigger and and do big projects and stuff, you know. So great job, Ray. And uh I'm sure your mom is also involved too, and the rest of your family, but you've done a tremendous job. Ella, keep your head up and keep going. I'm looking forward to following you and seeing where you go from here, and and hope that you can uh take on some much larger projects and you get some great volunteers involved as well. Great, thank you. And folks out there, you know, we have so much to look at today with young adults like Ella.

27:48 We hear so much negative stuff all the time. You know, what Ella's building with Ella's angels, from feeding families to empowering future leaders, is a reminder that service, compassion, and leadership have no age limit. The one thing that I like to do on this podcast is I like to highlight leaders and leadership. I don't always talk to military folks, but folks out there that have some gratitude and appreciation towards our military community is what I love to talk about the most. And Ella's Angels exemplifies the inspiration that our world needs today. So check out her work online and consider how you can be a part of the movement as well. Until next time, stay tuned, stay focused, and stay motivated.

28:33 Warriors, fall out.