A senior at Los Gatos High School, Lee leads a busy and very productive academic life.

His list of accomplishments, which is long, includes being co-editor-in-chief of the yearbook, playing varsity soccer and volunteering at the Community Hospital of Los Gatos, all while maintaining a GPA above 4.0.

Lee's newest achievement and most consuming endeavor is the creation of POSSE (Possibility Optimism Service Support Empowerment), a student-run organization whose mission it is to heighten diversity awareness in the school while teaching students "mutual respect and genuine compassion."

The school already has a diversity task force, of which Lee is a part, but he envisions POSSE taking a more action-oriented path.

"Our purpose is to work toward achieving a culture change in the high school. We want to create a new level of awareness about gender, sexual orientation and race," says Lee.

Having participated in several diversity awareness organizations and having personal experience with bias, Lee was a strong candidate for starting up a new program.

The roots of POSSE might be attributed to his participation in Camp Anytown, a camp in Boulder Creek that deals with diversity, race and gender issues on a personal level.

Lee also credits the time he met Rep. Michael Honda while participating in a youth leadership conference in Washington, D.C. last year. He found the meeting inspirational, and it motivated him to initiate a new program.

"I wanted to start something influential," says Lee, "and I was already working with the diversity task force and trying to promote diversity awareness. That guided me into the direction for POSSE."

Lee began plans during the end of his junior year. "I was going through a lot of deep rumination about it and decided that this was something I was passionate about," he says. "Our school doesn't have gangs, but it has cliques and a lack of diversity. That separation might be fine to some people, but in my eyes it is an amplification of the problem."

Plans began over the summer when Lee, joined by several friends, laid out the plans for the organization and started drumming up support.

Interest in the program quickly gained speed. POSSE now has 50 "leaders" (there are no titles such as president or treasurer in the organization), and has the full backing of Los Gatos High School Principal Trudy McCulloch. "This organization is a principal's dream. And, knowing Felix, it will be first-class," says McCulloch.

The organization's plan of action is already in full swing. POSSE recently held a casual activity session during freshman orientation that provided first-year students with group exercises and information about the high school. Freshmen are currently the group's main focus "because they are still moldable," says Lee. "We want to share the values of respect and dignity. Hopefully they will follow through with this program so that when they are seniors they can make the school how they want it to be."

One of the key issues POSSE will be working on with the freshmen is heightening awareness about slang that may be offensive. The group also wants to connect upperclassmen with younger students and start a buddy system for transfer students that come throughout the year.

The next event will likely be a freshman class sleepover held in the high school gym. Lee believes this will provide a fun, more emotionally safe environment to explore diversity issues.

Inspiration for the events comes mainly from Lee's experience with diversity camps, the school's diversity task force, and his own personal goals for the campus.

Recruits must be freshmen who have been through their first semester. POSSE members are selected through staff and peer recommendations. The group looks for outgoing students who have a sincere interest in helping others, which is ensured by new members signing a pledge of their duty. Currently the membership is divided among seniors, juniors and several sophomores.

Lee is keeping an eye on the new members, casually scoping out possible candidates to take his place when he graduates this spring. Finding his replacement is not a big issue for him now, but for a student so devoted to the school and its future, it is somewhat of a natural concern.