Meet Elizabeth Duhig

We recently connected with Elizabeth Duhig and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Elizabeth , appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

Over the years I have been the founder of The Ground Up Project, I have gone through tribulations that have made me develop a deep sense of resilience. This resilience comes from a purpose that turns every sacrifice into a meaningful act of service. I also deeply enjoy all the involvements I am in, which makes it seem less like a sacrifice and more like an enjoyable task. Whether declining to attend social events to volunteer at my local hospital, or staying up late to sort through recently collected donations, I did everything not only out of sheer enjoyment but also out of a sense of purpose. The purpose and fulfillment I got from my involvements allowed me to develop a sense of resilience that has positively affected my humanitarian involvements and bled into my academic life.
I am acutely aware that the work I do is not about me, but is about the people I aim to serve. I aim to serve the people of San Diego by reallocating the surplus of households to places and families who do not have enough. Whether that be food, clothing, hygienic products, etc., my goal is to serve the people who need these essential items. This does not only apply to San Diego, but it applies to anywhere I have been able to reach. Whether that be my local homeless shelter, an orphanage in Mexico, or a refugee camp in Bangladesh, I have strived to take what people don’t use and use it to help others. My resilience comes from the knowledge that I am helping someone, even if it is a stranger on the other side of the planet. I find a deep sense of fulfillment in helping people, it is what gives me purpose. Subsequently, that has given me a stubborn, incessant resilience that keeps me going no matter the conditions I subject myself to to get everything done. That’s why I continue moving forward no matter what, because I know that my efforts are not in vain, and are benefiting my community.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

The Ground Up Project is a humanitarian project that began after an internship I attended in Washington D.C. in July 2023. Since then, my team and I have donated over 4,200 pounds of goods to three countries and three U.S. cities. We have hosted a multitude of drives and initiatives to collect donations to give to underserved communities and fulfill our mission, “use your surplus to push others up”. This mission statement encapsulates the commonality of overconsumption in the US, and an aspiration to reallocate the surplus that some have and give it to others who do not have enough.
Although The Ground Up Project only has a staff team of about five people, there is a network of volunteers who always show up to volunteer events and participate in the various drives we have hosted. Every drive and volunteer event hosted by The Ground Up Project is incredibly exciting to me. I deeply enjoy organizing these drives and seeing them come to fruition because I know that they make an impact on the people who need it most.
In 2023, The Ground Up Project hosted a food drive in collaboration with an advocacy club at my school to feed San Diego families during the holiday season, as well as a winter toy drive to send toys to an orphanage in Mexico in time for a Mexican holiday called Rosca de los Reyes.
In 2024, The Ground Up Project expanded its reach to host drives of all kinds and donate indiscriminately to wherever it could reach. In February 2024, The Ground Up Project hosted a menstrual product drive in collaboration with another humanitarian project that was based in Long Beach to ship menstrual products to the Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh. In March 2024, The Ground Up Project co-hosted a state-wide clothing drive in collaboration with another humanitarian initiative based in Los Angeles and a school club based in San Francisco. In April 2024, donations of hygienic products, bedding, and Vietnamese educational books were collected to donate to a non-profit in Hanoi, Vietnam called Blue Dragon, which is a non-profit that strives to rescue and rehabilitate human trafficking victims in Vietnam and surrounding countries. In the summer of 2024, The Ground Up Project hosted a summer book drive, which culminated in hundreds of books being collected and donated to various organizations and a local hospital. Lastly, from October to November of 2024, The Ground Up project hosted another food drive with my school’s Minority Student Union to feed families in San Diego during the holiday season.
In 2025, during the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires, The Ground Up Project launched its most ambitious drive. It was a drive of any items that Los Angeles shelters were accepting, such as baby supplies, menstrual products, hygienic products, clothing, food, and more. Throughout January and February 2025, The Ground Up Project rapidly collected donations from San Diego and enlisted volunteer drivers to drive to Los Angeles to give the donations to shelters in need. When direct donations to Los Angeles became too dangerous, we pivoted to nearby areas where people fled, like Santa Monica. We knew that even though the fires were out, the devastation was still very apparent, and we responded accordingly. Overall, it was a time of rapid change as lists of requested items from Los Angeles shelters were constantly changing, and I wanted to make sure that the donations that arrived there could be used.
Volunteer events were hosted throughout the drives to speed up donation sorting and give community service hours. Clothing donations that couldn’t be given to other charities were sent to a textile program that processed damaged clothes into sustainable fabric. This has ensured that the things that can be used are used, and the things that cannot be used are diverted from the waste stream. I find The Ground Up Project to be special because although it makes international donations, it is also sensitive to the needs of San Diego. For example, when Hurricane Hillary hit in 2023, The Ground Up Project quickly focused all winter clothing donations to flooded areas to ensure people who had their homes flooded could still be warm and dry.
The Ground Up Project has grown to become an initiative that embraces compassion, empathy, and the power of collective action. Looking forward, we hope to expand our impact even further by continuing to address urgent needs, both locally and internationally. I don’t know what that will look like as I enter university in the fall, but I want to continue The Ground Up Project for as long as possible because I know that it will make a positive impact in the San Diego and global community.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Throughout my time running The Ground Up Project, there have been three qualities and a skill that have stood out in ensuring the smooth function of The Ground Up Project: generosity, compassion, and time management. These have given me the mindset and the drive to keep The Ground Up Project going in a way that can help the needy no matter what.
Generosity and compassion are the backbone of The Ground Up Project, as The Ground Up Project bases all its mission on these virtues. Growing up with a roof over my head and food always on the table, I became acutely aware of the disparities people face in San Diego. This sparked a deep sense of compassion, which drove me to create the project in the first place. I did not want people to suffer while there was so much food and clothing being put to waste in San Diego. Compassion not only drives me to continuously work on The Ground Up Project, but it also encourages my team to volunteer and participate in the various drives. While The Ground Up Project started with sole compassion, compassion along with generosity is what keeps the project running. Generosity from the San Diego community through donations allows The Ground Up Project to give to the people who need it most. Without these donations, The Ground Up Project would effectively cease to exist. Compassion and generosity are two qualities that drive The Ground Up Project in order to continue our mission of using the surplus of some to push others up and out of difficult situations.
Time management is a skill of utmost importance not only to maintain The Ground Up Project, but to also juggle it with the rest of my life’s responsibilities. I juggle clubs, internships, research, sports, volunteering, and AP classes along with The Ground Up Project, so time management has been an integral part of my life. I allocate time to work on The Ground Up Project, or even put The Ground Up Project down for a while to focus on academics or another urgent responsibility. I also use my time management skills in the context of my volunteering. In the sorting event, I will pair volunteers together to work on a certain pile of donations, and if a pair finishes early, I will assign them to help another pair with their pile to ensure efficiency. Time management is important to maintain The Ground Up Project, but it is also important in all aspects of life, as time is a valuable asset that should not be wasted.
Overall, the journey of The Ground Up Project has taught me that my success was driven by the core qualities of generosity and compassion, and the skill of time management to keep everything in balance. To me, they are not only values people can choose to operate with, but they are the backbone of me as a person. I choose to let it manifest in a way that benefits as many people as possible via The Ground Up Project.
For anyone starting their project, my advice is to stay grounded in what drives you. Start small, stay consistent, and focus on what truly matters to you. Don’t stretch yourself too thin in order to prevent burnout and be aware that not perfection, but persistence, will get you where you need to be.

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?

Through my personal experience, I strongly believe that being well-rounded is better than going all in on one strength due to the adaptability that a well-rounded skill set has to offer. Although going all-in with a few strengths would guarantee mastery in the subjects of the person’s choosing, if the person stumbles upon a situation that does not match their intended field, they may not be able to respond accordingly to that situation. However, someone who may not be a complete master in a lot of subjects, but is at least proficient in them, may be able to handle more situations better than the person with one strength. Also, spending energy on things that you aren’t as strong in may benefit you in challenging yourself and testing your perseverance. All in all, a well-rounded skillset is better than one singular strength due to the flexibility and adaptability it gives to navigate the unpredictability of life.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tgupsd.org/
• Instagram: thegroundupprojectsd