Overview:
Silver Creek High School senior Braeden Macchia turned a childhood hobby into a student-led project that has worked with about 40 nonprofits.
High school senior Braeden Macchia vividly recalls driving home after shooting free drone videos for a youth homeless shelter.
“I was just silent the entire way,” Macchia said. “No music, no nothing. I was just thinking about these kids who are living in this facility. It really was impactful and made me realize why I do this.”
Macchia turned a childhood drone hobby into a passion project called Drones for Dreams, which creates drone photography and video for nonprofits and other organizations that are making a positive impact. Drones for Dreams has shot for 40 organizations, mostly along the Front Range, and has expanded from Macchia’s personal project to a team of students.
Macchia got his first drone as a Christmas present in fifth grade. By seventh grade, he was taking a drone videography class and bringing the equipment on family vacations. His first nonprofit project came in eighth grade, when he filmed tiny homes being built for homeless veterans through Veterans Community Project.
“I realized that so many organizations could use this drone work but often can’t afford it,” Macchia said.
Even as quarterback of his high school football team and student body president, Macchia carved out weekends to contact organizations, shoot footage and edit videos.
“Especially during football season, time is tight,” said Macchia, who often leaves home at 6:30 a.m., doesn’t get back until 7 p.m. and squeezes in maybe an hour of work before bed.
When Drones for Dreams was starting, Macchia said he sent roughly 100 cold emails a month offering his services. One landed with OtterCares, the philanthropic arm of OtterBox.
Macchia did not realize OtterCares already partnered with the St. Vrain Valley Schools Innovation Center, which serves students in the same district as his school, Silver Creek High School. That connection helped Drones for Dreams grow beyond one student.
“They wondered if we could somehow use Braeden’s inspirational example with Drones for Dreams and expand that spirit of service, that magic, if you will,” said Joe McBreen, assistant superintendent of innovation at St. Vrain Valley Schools.
Last May, OtterCares gave the Innovation Center $25,000 to support student work with nonprofits. The center also created a Drones for Dreams team, which currently includes seven students.
“No longer is it just Braeden Macchia by himself, typically on a Sunday, reaching out to nonprofits and trying to schedule them,” McBreen said. “No, he has a whole team of students around him.”
At the team’s first meeting in August, McBreen said, Macchia skipped over logistics and techniques and dove straight into why the work matters.
“The students that showed up were leaning in and were all in,” McBreen said. “Long story short, that first meeting was a pretty special moment for me because I knew that the kids were there for the right reasons.”
For Macchia, however, teaching technical and professional skills is secondary to the project’s larger purpose: helping nonprofits stretch limited budgets further. Last year, he filmed The Landing, a youth homeless shelter operated by The Matthews House. That was the shoot that stayed with him on the drive home.
“Maybe we’re not actually giving a teen a place to stay,” Macchia said, “but if that means that they’re getting another grant because they had great marketing material, if that means they’re able to build another facility because they were able to advertise, that makes a big difference.”
Sarah Sikes, development associate at The Matthews House, said free services like Macchia’s allow nonprofits to direct more money toward the people they serve.
“That money could buy some food for the kids at The Landing,” Sikes said. “It could help them go on an outing that maybe they wouldn’t be able to experience otherwise.”
She was also impressed by Macchia’s professionalism.
“He showed up on time. He had all of his equipment ready,” Sikes said. Once we walked the space and he could see everything, he formed a plan of how he wanted to do it, and he executed the plan.”
Macchia is now applying to colleges, with the University of Notre Dame as his top choice, and said he wants to study entrepreneurship.
“Being able to build Drones for Dreams has been a really cool experience that has taught me how much I love building,” he said. “And even though photography and videography and drones have been a huge part of my life, now I think of channeling that into a different adventure.”
Before leaving for college, Macchia is creating a workflow that will allow the Innovation Center team to continue without him leading every project. He plans to check in during college breaks and hopes the idea eventually spreads beyond Colorado.
“How it expands, I don’t know,” Macchia said. “Maybe that just looks like one kid who wants to make a difference and is interested in drones and says, ‘Hey, I live in California. This is really cool. I want to start doing something like this here.’ At the end of the day, I’m cool with it either way as long as it’s helping people.”
