Students from 27 Fairfax County public schools have been named recipients of the 2025 Student Peace Awards of Fairfax County, designed to recognize young people who work as peacemakers. 

The Student Peace Awards of Fairfax County began in 2006 as a way to encourage people to think more about peace as both a means and an end, and to recognize young people who work as peacemakers. Every year, the high schools in Fairfax County are asked to select one junior or senior, or a group of students, whose work has promoted peace. The project is organized by volunteers and funded by donations from 15 secular and religious sponsoring organizations.

Shri Bala, Falls Church High School. Shri Bala has worked at Falls Church High School and on a national level to promote sustainability and equity in urban architecture. She founded high school chapters of the American Institute of Architecture Students and of Habitat for Humanity, in which students help construct homes. She also founded GOLD2GREEN, working with her school’s engineering department to design and obtain equipment to create self-watering planter buckets to grow vegetables.  

Through a partnership with Hands on Harvests, buckets and instructions were distributed to more than 80 Falls Church families to enable them to grow their own food.  She self-published a book, Kai’s Dream, to raise children’s awareness of environmental and urban sustainability.  And last year, she spoke on a national stage on minority representation and studio resource inequality in the architecture industry.