On a December morning at 6 a.m., teenager Sienna Rhynd and her mother, Jillian Rhynd, drove from their home in Standish to downtown Portland. They parked their car and unloaded over 100 bags filled with warm clothing, trash bags and food Sienna had collected through a self-managed donation drive. The pair set out into the streets, handing the bags out to unhoused people. By 9 a.m., they were out of supplies.

The trip was part of Sienna’s capstone graduation project, which requires Bonny Eagle High School students to apply their interests in the community. But the work was far from a one-off for the mother-daughter pair. Sienna, with Jillian’s support, had completed 220 hours of community service by the time she tallied up the time for her college applications in the fall. That number has kept growing.

“My mom and I are basically best friends,” Sienna said. “So we kind of do everything together.”

In September, they ran a used book drive. Sienna collected unwanted books from family and friends, filled her car and dropped them off at Baxter Memorial Library in Gorham. In October, they wrote “thank you” notes and baked treats for police officers and firefighters in Standish, Buxton and Hollis. In November, they collected contributions to bring to the Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland in Westbrook. They’ve done similar projects for Maine Immigrant and Refugee Services in Lewiston and Hope Acts, a Portland refugee center.

Jillian said Sienna’s interest in helping others dates back to childhood when she went with her mom to help out in soup kitchens. In 2019, when Sienna was in middle school, she and Jillian cooked and baked for some of the immigrants that came to Maine that year from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“That was when I really saw her starting to connect with people and seeing the impact it could have in the community. There were people there with no shoes that had just got here to Maine, and I think seeing that impacted her,” Jillian said.

Sienna remembers listening to some of the people at the soup kitchen tell their life stories and how they ended up without a home.

“It just really kind of opened my eyes into how close that is for people,” Sienna said. “People forget that they could be in those circumstances.”

Seeing that a GoFundMe fundraiser started by another volunteer for a homeless man raised $15,000 inspired her to continue.

The impetus to volunteer exists throughout their family, Jillian said. Her own mother was active in community service programs, and Sienna’s father and Jillian’s husband, Eric Rhynd, joined the U.S. Marines right after college.

The three are all musical and play together — Sienna and Eric on guitar and Jillian and Eric singing — for the elderly at the Enclave of Scarborough. Sienna also plays the flute and piano, and recently picked up a clarinet.

“We have kind of a family band going on,” Sienna said.

Putting together such a large number of volunteer initiatives has required a lot of strategic planning and collaboration between Sienna and Jillian.

“I honestly treasure it, because, I think I learned about letting (her) take the lead and not micromanaging,” Jillian said. She offers suggestions to Sienna about coordinating dates, setting goals and budgeting, and Sienna takes it from there, pivoting the plan when necessary.

“We work to set it in motion together,” Sienna said. “I think we both have a lot of fun.”

Sienna will attend Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, in the fall, where she’ll study neuroscience and Spanish, and plans to go to medical school — she’s also volunteered at Maine Medical Center. She keeps busy playing in the school band, working at Dunkin’ and traveling to the University of Maryland for the National History Day Contest — she has entered research papers for five years and attended three times.

But she’s still making time to continue her community service habits with Jillian. In the next month, they’ll write letters to members of the Maine National Guard who are beginning their annual training period.

“I don’t care if she’s bagging groceries or if she’s the president of the United States,” Jillian said of Sienna’s future. “I just want her to make lasting connections, because that’s what it’s all about.”