Cerritos native, Ivy League school student creates website designed to help California residents

LOS ANGELES - A local teen who attends an Ivy League school with a big brain and even bigger heart put his pandemic downtime to good use by creating a website to help others.

Cerritos native, Jay Doshi, is beginning his junior year at Cornell University at just 17-years-old. At the prestigious New York university, students are able to attend in-person classes. 

However, last semester Doshi spent his time in quarantine working on a website to help California residents. 

"Communities didn't have access to resources individuals who were being affected emotionally and physically. There was no cumulative database," he said. 

So, he did something about it and created it himself.

The California Social Resource Database is an online directory of resources.

His database includes information on food banks, health care, emergency shelters, financial and legal aid, mental health services and other support. The website encompasses 58 different sites as it includes one database for each county in California.

Doshi has a team of 30 interns to keep the database running while he is back on Cornell's campus in New York.

He's majoring in Biology and aspires to become a doctor. 

"I just wanted to do my small part in the community and help out any way I could," said Doshi.

The database is updated every two weeks.

To learn more, visit caliresources.org.