Celebrating a Year of Growth, Creativity, and Community
Asian American LEAD’s End of Year Celebration brought together youth, families, staff, and community members for an afternoon of reflection, creativity, and joy at KID Museum. The event featured a STEAM Project Showcase, museum exploration, and a graduation ceremony honoring AALEAD seniors as they prepared for their next chapter.
Throughout the celebration, youth proudly shared projects that highlighted their learning, growth, and innovation over the past year. Families and supporters joined in recognizing the accomplishments and resilience of our young people while reflecting on the strength of our community.
We were also honored to celebrate Monumental Sports & Entertainment’s generous $10,000 gift in support of AALEAD youth and programs. Their investment helps expand access to opportunities, resources, and supportive spaces for AAPI youth.
The creativity, curiosity, and dedication on display throughout the event were a powerful reminder of what is possible when youth are empowered to learn, lead, and thrive.
“I attended the AALEAD End of Year (EOY) Celebration and was so moved to see youth, mentors, family, and friends come together from across the DMV and across our various programs. I teared up and felt so proud watching the seniors cross our little stage setup and shake everyone’s hands as a practice graduation before their official ones at school. Seeing everyone wandering around in the KID Museum with sushi-making and a chopstick lima bean competition, while also engaging with the other interactive stations, was lots of fun!” - AALEAD Manager
“At the AALEAD EOY event at the KID museum, I discovered how much the high school youth can be interested in the middle schoolers and their work as much as middle schoolers to the high schoolers. I was waiting in line with a couple of 8th graders I work with to look at their finished yearbook behind a couple of MD high school senior youth. They didn’t even realize we were behind them, but they were still gushing over the yearbook and wished they did a similar project. When I spoke up, I introduced the 8th graders and the HS youth gave them major props for the yearbook. Later in the event, one of the 7th graders I work with connected very fast with a DC senior youth during clean up through jokes and awkwardness. At our next program day, that same 7th grader came up to ask me about the whereabouts of the DC senior youth they connected with at EOY.” - AALEAD Youth Facilitation Coordinator