Noah Sorin ’20
Noah Sorin ’20 grew up on an organic vegetable farm in Montgomery, Vermont. Describing his childhood and how it led him to attend SJA as a boarding student, Noah said, “Growing up in such a rural area made it harder to make friends, but I have an older brother and an older sister that I spent a lot of time with. It also gave me a deep appreciation for nature. I spent most of my childhood outdoors hiking, camping, fishing, and snowboarding. However, I always felt a bit isolated in Montgomery, which was largely my motivation to attend a boarding school to get out of my comfort zone and meet people from much further away.”
Noah greatly enjoyed his time at SJA and said he “…stayed really busy all the time. I played football, basketball, and lacrosse. I started on JV when I was a freshman for all three but worked my way up to varsity by sophomore/junior year. I won a state championship with the SJA football team in 2017 and another championship with the basketball team in 2019. I was also one of the captains of the SJA lacrosse team my junior year in 2019, but missed out on my senior year lacrosse season because of COVID.”
In addition to athletics, he was involved in student government, serving on class council, student government, and dorm council. He was also a student admissions ambassador. Noah appreciates the connections he made at SJA and said, “Outside of class, I was also able to make amazing friends from all around the world. Since attending the Academy, I have visited friends that I met in St. Johnsbury in Germany, Spain, and Japan. These incredible international travel experiences never would’ve happened without the connections that I made as a student there.”
Noah’s favorite classes were creative writing, Spanish, and pottery. When asked about a faculty member who inspired him, Noah said, “I took multiple creative writing classes with Mrs. Mackenzie, and it was a real turning point in my life, honestly. I always loved writing poetry, and the poetry portfolio that I created in advanced creative writing actually received national recognition from the scholastic art and writing awards. This class inspired my interest in short stories, and I am now a published children’s author.”
After the Academy, Noah attended Boston University (BU). Describing the transition to college, he said, “The transition felt very similar to my transition from Montgomery Elementary School to SJA. It was way bigger than what I was used to, which was a little intimidating at first, but I was also incredibly grateful for how much more opportunity there was. There were so many more people to meet, more clubs/extracurriculars, and more stuff to do in the city. I felt at home in Boston very shortly after moving here.”
Noah excelled at BU and graduated magna cum laude in May 2024 with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and an independent concentration—which means he designed the concentration himself—called “Sustainable Impact in Entrepreneurship.” At graduation, he was honored with the Student Sustainability Leadership Award for his contributions to several sustainability focused initiatives at BU and beyond. Noah was also named BU’s 2024 “Student Innovator of the Year” by the Innovate@ BU Initiative.
Noah described his other accomplishments, saying, “As the president of the BU Entrepreneur’s Club, I hosted the first ever BU Sustainability Innovation Conference, which saw over 200 attendants. I volunteered with a club called TUGi (the Urban Gardening Initiative), which involved visiting urban schools in underserved areas and providing educational programming to teach kids about plants and gardening. I received funding from the Campus Climate Lab to plant roughly 400 trees within a Miyawaki forest on BU’s Charles River Campus. I came in 2nd place in the Questrom $50k Sustainability Case Competition, in 2nd place in the BU Climate Innovation Challenge, and in 1st place in the BU $100k Hospitality Innovation Competition for Social Impact.”
Noah is now an early childhood educator and an entrepreneur. This summer, he worked as a teaching assistant at Boston Outdoor Preschool Network but recently decided to focus on his startup business full-time. His startup work began as a first-year student at BU. Noah said, “I joined a first-year innovation fellowship, which was an extracurricular that awarded students $500 to ‘solve a problem that they really care about’ through the lens of innovation and entrepreneurship. I chose to address the lack of environmental education resources available for young kids. I have been working on this project for about four years, and it has come a really long way.”
He continued, “I started a company called Idori (which stands for I Dream of Real Impact), and we make educational resources that teach kids about nature and sustainability. I have written and published three children’s books about deforestation, ocean conservation, and air pollution, created plush toys to accompany the characters in the books, and I have also begun developing online games to teach kids about sustainability. I take my resources into schools and offer environmental learning curriculum and programming for prek-3rd grade classes.”
Noah is now in the process of starting a nonprofit that would allow him to send student ambassadors into local underserved early learning centers to improve the accessibility of this type of educational programming. He has already raised over $30,000 for this project through grants and pitch competitions, allowing him to purchase his first 2,000 books. He plans to launch a Kickstarter campaign in the coming months to raise the money needed to create a larger impact on the kids he works with. You can learn more about his company at https://idori.com.
What does an average day look like for Noah? “As an entrepreneur, two days are never the same for me, but generally, I spend some of my days in classrooms, visiting schools, working with kids, and I spend the rest of my time working with my team and my community to grow my brand and create a larger impact. I may spend a few hours at a school teaching a 1st-grade classroom about recycling and then head to the MassChallenge work space to have a few meetings with my marketing team or my educational partners. I also attend networking events for sustainability, education, and entrepreneurship in Boston quite often.”
Describing his favorite and most challenging parts of the job, Noah said, “My favorite part of my job is definitely being able to see the impact that I am having on the children that I work with. Seeing young kids have important realizations, like the fact that they can be agents of change in the world around them, is something that is very rewarding for me. In contrast, the most challenging part can be connecting with a young child who doesn’t see eye-to-eye with me. Working with kids is a lot of work but incredibly fulfilling.”
Noah’s advice to today’s SJA students is, “Find something that stirs you, something that matters to you on a deep, personal level. Once you have that, don’t just follow the path others have laid out, carve your own. Use that passion to bring fresh ideas to life, challenge the status quo, and create something unique that truly reflects who you are. The world needs your original voice, your energy, and your drive. So be bold, take risks, and remember: the only limits are the ones you set for yourself.”