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Students across the country are taking their burgeoning business skills and applying them to helping the needy, thanks to the efforts of Thomas S. Wootton High School junior Tim Hwang.

Last year, Hwang helped found Operation Fly, a group geared toward helping the underprivileged in inner cities. What started off as an operation of about 50 students meeting at Wootton has blossomed into a thriving nonprofit organization with more than 500 student employees and volunteers, and branches in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Boston, New York, and Baltimore.

Hwang started the nonprofit in July 2007 with his friend and fellow Wootton student Minsoo Han. The two had attended a service trip to Guatemala together and were looking for ways to help those living in poverty.

"Any group of students can assemble and say we are a group that helps the homeless," Hwang said. "But we wanted to make a legitimate organization that had the capacity to help out in the inner city on the level we envisioned."

The organization is completely student-run, though it's structured similarly to any professional organization. Student employees, who work for student service learning hours, travel into the cities to hand out donations to those living on the street. During the winter, a popular activity undertaken by the group is "sheets for streets" — in which students wrap blankets in gift paper and distribute them to the homeless. Similarly, in the spring, students fill backpacks with necessities for inner-city children during the "packs for backs" program.

The group funds its operations through donations, fundraisers, and a low-cost tutoring program geared at inner-city students.

Students lead all five of the group's departments: marketing, public relations, outreach, event management and public relations. The group resembles a grassroots network of chapters, with new branches spreading rapidly from the international to the local level. The organization may soon be expanding to Toronto, Los Angeles and Dallas. Closer to home, the group has opened chapters at Wootton, Winston Churchill, Richard Montgomery and Montgomery Blair high schools.

The group's motto is "Soar to new possibilities," and according to Hwang, it's geared not just at the people the group helps out, but also at the students who are learning to run a de-facto business.

"When you are 15 or 16, learning to manage a group of 20 or 30 students is a great leadership experience," Hwang said. "A lot of the students have never done any fundraising or community work, and it the first time they're learning to interact with their community, adults and other students."

Montgomery Blair sophomore Quinn Shen works as the assistant vice president for the human resources department in the D.C. chapter. He keeps track of the hours worked by group members there, lets members know about upcoming events, and looks for candidates who may be able to help the group expand into more schools. "It's really helped me tap into my organizational skills," said Shen. "I have to make sure everything goes correctly so I don't let down the other members."

Kevin Ma, a Wootton junior, heads all five departments for the D.C. branch. The group, he said, has helped him hone his leadership skills — he's considering opening a small business in the future. But the most rewarding part of the experience is being able to help out the less fortunate, he said. "From prayers to thank you's, [the homeless] are always really thankful for what we do," Ma said. "It makes me feel really good."