Jothika Amuth, a junior at New Hope-Solebury High School, has quite the resume.
Amuth, who has been a student in the New Hope-Solebury School District since kindergarten, is president of the class of 2027 student council, co-founder of the For the Kids (FTK) Committee, parliamentarian of Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), project manager of the environmental club, a member of the key club, and a member of the tennis team. Outside of school, she is a volunteer coordinator at the Delaware Valley Food Pantry, a Youth Ambassador of the Future Assistant U.S. Attorneys (AUSA) program at the District Attorneys Office in Philadelphia, and started an initiative called Beyond the Headlines to raise money for unnoticed causes.
“It motivates me to see these issues and how they can be resolved based on all the work we do, so I get involved because I’m passionate about not only the causes but seeing the real impact I can make on them,” Amuth said.
As a first-year high school student, Amuth and a friend founded the FTK committee, which is similar to Penn State’s THON, being both raise money for pediatric cancer. As parliamentarian in FBLA, Amuth ensures her fellow club members adhere to the rules and guidelines of objective tests of the organization. Key Club involves volunteering in the community. Amuth volunteers outside of school as well with the Delaware Valley Food Pantry and a fundraising effort she founded called Beyond the Headlines.
In the environmental club, Amuth has worked with other students to implement green walls in her school, which are walls covered in vegetation.
"Plants are meant to stimulate motivation and encouragement in schools, so we’re trying to bring green walls to New Hope-Solebury High School to help out with that," Amuth said.
Green walls are just one initiative the environmental club has taken on. During spirit week at New Hope-Solebury High School this year, which was in February, the club hosted a trash clean-up, which brought out 150 students to help pick up trash on their campus to earn spirit week points. Additionally, the school recently cut down trees to renovate their football field, after which the school, planning to replant trees, gave the club the responsibility of researching which plants would work best on the campus's environment.
Amuth said her interest in environmental issues began while playing on her school’s tennis team, when she was upset to see so much trash around the area of the tennis courts. One of her teammates advised Amuth to attend an environmental club meeting.
"It was really inspiring to see all the kids who are so passionate about not only cleaning up our campus but our community and making it better for all," Amuth said.
At school, Amuth also sits on the student advisory board, where students hold discussions with representatives and superintendent principles of their schools about mental health, bullying, and other issues Amuth has heard voiced by her classmates. Because of this newfound interest in advocacy, she discovered the Future AUSA program, which is a program that offers high school students a look into the legal process, and joined it.
"I've always wanted to help advocate for people in need," Amuth said.
Amuth's advocacy extends to the community with the Delaware Valley Food Pantry, where she, as a volunteer coordinator and chair, trains new high school volunteers in stocking food and guiding clients, who come from parts of Hunterdon and Bucks County, around the pantry to find what they need. She decided to help this food pantry because she noticed that a separate local food pantry, called Fisherman's Mark, received more donations than the Delaware Valley Food Pantry.
"When I heard there was another food pantry that wasn’t getting as much food, that's part of the reason why I wanted to come and help," Amuth said.
If she had to choose, Amuth said her most significant project is raising money for families in Sri Lanka, where her family is from, during their recent economic crisis.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sri Lanka's tourism industry, one of its most lucrative, significantly declined. After a series of economic policies by the government, the country's GDP shrunk by about seven percent in 2022. Girishanthy Krishnarajah, Amuth's mother, said residents could not afford basic necessities, could not light fires in their house due to a lack of gas, and had to stand in line to receive rice. Krishnarajah, born in Sri Lanka, moved to America when she was 17. Her sister currently lives in Sri Lanka, and her mother, who has passed, lived in the country for most of her life.
Recently, Sri Lanka's economy has been rebounding, as it grew by five percent in 2024.
Throughout the years, Amuth has raised $10,000 for Sri Lanka through various projects, such as baking brownies and individual donations. In 2023, she raised money for food for eighty families over six months. In 2024, after widespread floods in the country, which caused widespread evacuations, house damages, and deaths, she raised money for flood victims and for supplies for the local hospitals.
"When my daughter saw that devastation in Sri Lanka, she thought there's something we can do from here because each dollar from the U.S. extends so much more when it goes to Sri Lanka. That's why she raised the money," Krishnarajah said.
Amuth's work for Sri Lanka is associated with her Beyond the Headlines project. In 2022 and 2023, as the world came together in support of Ukraine, Amuth said she founded her project because the Sri Lankan economic crisis was not receiving much media coverage. She added that she did not believe the neglected causes should be left neglected.
"The causes that I was passionate about and the causes that were most successful were the ones that weren’t getting attention in the media," Amuth said. "When I brought it up, nobody had really thought about it before because there were many other things going on in the headlines like the Russia-Ukraine war, so Beyond the Headlines brings neglected causes attention and therefore brings them support."
Patrick Sasse, principal of New Hope-Solebury High School, expressed pride in Amuth.“Jothika is an innovative and creative thinker who has worked tirelessly for the benefit of her peers and the surrounding school community,” Sasse said. “Her talents, both in and out of the classroom, are a great blueprint of bringing our Portrait of a Graduate characteristics to life, and I could not be prouder of her drive and ambition in making a positive difference.”
Out of all of those who have influenced her throughout her life, Amuth said her biggest inspiration is her mother, who has been highly involved in community volunteering. She is the president of the board of the Delaware Valley Food Pantry and has worked there since 2021; she has volunteered at the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen; she is also part of the curriculum board; and she is involved in guidance counseling at New Hope-Solebury for students who may be interested in her field of work, and through her work, she helps mentor and provide career paths for inner city students.
"My mother has done a lot of charity work, which I have always admired, and when I saw all the problems taking place in Sri Lanka, I really wanted to do something to help, and she was the one who encouraged me to take that initiative and do something about it," Amuth said.
As a student, Amuth has already made waves in her community. Amuth said she hopes to continue her volunteering and advocacy work possibly through her future profession, but definitively throughout her life.
