Meet Austin Koziarski, the high-school student who now leads more than 200 volunteers helping refugee children across 18 schools

When Austin Koziarski first arrived at JaxTHRIVE as a high school freshman, he was looking for a way to spend his time on something useful. The Jacksonville programme allowed him to tutor children who had recently arrived in the United States, including many from Afghanistan. What began as a volunteering role gradually became a much larger commitment. According to Points Of Light, by August 2026, Koziarski was serving as co-president of JaxTHRIVE, helping coordinate more than 200 volunteers drawn from 18 area high schools. His work now stretches beyond tutoring, covering volunteer training, school-supply collections, holiday drives and educational events designed to help refugee families settle into their new surroundings.Koziarski grew from a volunteer tutor into a leader of JaxTHRIVEKoziarski joined JaxTHRIVE during his freshman year of high school. The organisation works with refugee children in the Jacksonville area, providing tutoring and other forms of community support.His involvement did not remain limited to sitting with students during tutoring sessions. As his responsibilities grew, he took on organisational work behind the scenes, including rebuilding the group's website and making changes to its volunteer training process.He eventually became co-president. In that position, Koziarski helps bring together a network of more than 200 student volunteers representing 18 local high schools.Koziarski helps connect more than 200 volunteers with refugee studentsReportedly, a central part of JaxTHRIVE's work is its ‘Super Saturday’ tutoring programme, held twice each month. The sessions give refugee children a regular opportunity to receive academic help while spending time with volunteers closer to their own age.Koziarski helps coordinate these sessions alongside the wider volunteer network. The scale of the programme means his role involves more than direct work with individual children. Volunteers have to be organised, prepared and connected with the activities taking place on the day. That organisational side has become an important part of his contribution.Koziarski helps organise wider support for refugee children and familiesJaxTHRIVE's activities also extend outside the classroom. Koziarski has helped organise drives collecting school supplies and holiday baskets for refugee families. These efforts sit alongside the tutoring programme, giving volunteers different ways to support children and their families. For Koziarski, the work has developed from a single volunteering opportunity into a continuing role involving both community events and the practical running of the organisation.The programme's reach has also allowed students from several Jacksonville-area schools to participate together.A financial lesson beyond the classroomKoziarski has also helped arrange activities that focus on skills refugee students may need as they grow older. One such event was a financial literacy Reality Fair organised with VyStar Credit Union. The activity introduced students to everyday financial decisions, including budgeting, taxes and insurance. Rather than concentrating solely on school subjects, it gave participants an opportunity to think about some of the practical choices they may encounter as they build lives in the United States.For JaxTHRIVE, it added another dimension to the group's work with newly arrived children.One tutoring session left Koziarski with a lasting memoryAmong the individual moments Koziarski remembers is his interaction with a 10-year-old boy named Mehran.The two were building a bridge from paper towel rolls when Mehran quietly told him that he wanted to become an engineer. Koziarski encouraged him to keep working towards that ambition. The conversation ended with the boy smiling with greater confidence.It was a small exchange within a much larger volunteer programme, but it illustrates the personal side of the tutoring work. The relationship between volunteer and student can sometimes extend beyond completing an assignment or helping with a particular lesson.A growing role in Jacksonville's refugee communityBy August 2026, Koziarski's contribution to JaxTHRIVE covered a broad range of responsibilities. He was helping manage hundreds of student volunteers, organising regular tutoring sessions and coordinating additional activities for refugee children and families.His experience also shows how a high school volunteering role can develop over several years. What began with a freshman looking for somewhere to contribute became a leadership position involving volunteers from across the Jacksonville area.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.