When Anass arrived in the United States from Eritrea in September 2021, he was beginning a whole new chapter. Just 17 years old, he was learning to navigate a new country, strengthen his English and build a future for himself. Today, at 22, he’s doing something pretty incredible: Anass is the proud owner of Ehsan Pizzaria & Kitchen in Jacksonville! His journey from high school student to entrepreneur is a wonderful example of what can happen when determination, hard work and

When you hear Michelle and Christopher Kuo play piano together, it’s easy to focus on the extraordinary music. Michelle is a world-class pianist whose story began in Taiwan, where she was a child prodigy. She won the Taiwan National Piano Competition three years in a row as a teenager, later won the National Piano Competition in Hong Kong, studied at the Eastman School of Music and earned her master’s degree from The Juilliard School. She went on to perform at some of the wor

For 6-year-old Satyam, giving back is something he’s grown up seeing his family do--particularly at LSS. His mother, Neetal, serves on the LSS board, and in 2024, the whole family helped mentor a newly arrived Afghan family. But perhaps Satyam’s greatest influence has been his older brother, Jahan. When Jahan was just 7, he inspired friends, family and his community to help children arriving in Jacksonville as refugees. He organized care packages for Afghan and Ukrainian chil