Sophomores Ariia Blanco and Claire Chen, both members of the school’s Green Team club, found themselves doing something they never imagined doing on campus during Martin Luther King Day on Jan. 20: They painted storm drains blue and labelled them with the message that only rain should go down the drain.
This was one of more than a half dozen projects done by 86 students and six clubs, said assistant principal Matthew Torrens, who coordinated the efforts that day as part of the National Day of Service movement.
Previously, SHS had a service coordinator who specifically focused on service projects like the service day on MLK Day. This year, Torrens spearheaded the effort to bring back the day to the school, believing it would be beneficial to students and the community to focus on service again.
“We have so many kids [at SHS] that have done service, so we felt that this would have been good timing to bring it back,” Torrens said. “The administration wanted to support it, and the PTSO wanted to support it.”
As a part of the National Day of Service on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Jan. 20, several SHS clubs — including Beta Club, National Honor Society (NHS), Green Team, Mock Trial, Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) and Inspiring Future America (IFA) — collaborated with Martha’s Kitchen, Sacred Heart, Magic Yarn and Lasagna Love to organize community service projects that took place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Students were able to choose from six activities that took place in different locations on campus:
- The Magic Yarn Project: making wigs for cancer patients with 55 bundles of yarn
- Lasagna Love: assembled ingredients to make 24 three-layer lasagnas
- Martha’s Kitchen: assembled items for 200 “emergency snack bags”
- Sacred Heart: assemble items for 167 “survival sacks”
- Sacred Heart “Warm Coats”: donate 100 garbage bags of and bag coats and blankets
- Campus Beautification: painted grates
Beta Club and NHS assemble lasagna and wigs
Junior Ava Cai, co-president of Beta Club and president of NHS, wanted her two clubs to take part in the Day of Service since both are new clubs this school year and it was a great opportunity to get more students involved.
To prepare for the event, both Beta Club and NHS hosted their respective meetings to inform members about the community service opportunity. Then, the two clubs asked members and anyone Cai knew for donations.
For Lasagna Love — a nonprofit organization that provides homemade meal delivery to those who need it, NHS members contributed various ingredients including sauce, noodles and cheese. Students cooked the pasta beforehand and brought it to the service event to assemble the lasagna. On the day of, they formed groups and began assembling the three-layer pasta.
For Beta Club, members worked with The Magic Yarn Project to assemble yarn wigs for cancer patients.
To assemble the wigs, students were provided with guidance from volunteers from The Magic Yarn Project. They started by looping all of the yarn around long wooden planks. Then, they tied the yarn at certain parts and coordinators from the Magic Yarn project cut the yarn off the rods for the students to finish the wigs. In total, Beta Club was able to help make around 30 wigs.
“The most rewarding part of this project is knowing that all the hours we spent is going to a good cause and helping someone out there,” Cai said. “I have not been very involved in the community recently, but this event definitely got me into it. It feels really nice to give back to the community.”
Green Team paints drains on campus
Instead of collaborating with an outside organization, Green Team officers were inspired to take on their own project of painting around circular drains on campus.
According to Green Team treasurer senior Rani Khanna, the purpose of the drain painting was to bring awareness to potential pollutants that could enter the drains.
“The drains collect a lot of water runoff when it rains, so it’s important to keep the area as clean as possible to avoid our water from being contaminated and polluted,” Khanna said.
The Green Team officers met with a representative from the West Valley Clean Water Program Authority, who oversees stormwater pollution prevention for Saratoga and nearby cities, to explore ways to promote sustainability on campus, sparking the idea for their project.
Before the event, officers brainstormed designs for the painting to avoid having to purchase too many colors.
“We took inspiration from other drain painting designs and went through several drafts during our club meetings,” Green Team vice president senior Grace Liu said.
Both members and officers felt this activity was an engaging way of team bonding for the club.
“This was a relaxing project to beautify the campus and promote environmental awareness at the same time,” Liu said. “It was interesting to see how we can incorporate art in climate awareness.”
FBLA and IFA assemble survival packages
FBLA and IFA created survival sacs, in collaboration with Sacred Heart. Each sac included a rain poncho, toothpaste, soap, toilet paper, a wash cloth, comb, deodorant and other necessities.
“I knew that my club members would want to help contribute to a good cause and package items for the people in the Los Angeles fire,” junior FBLA president Jena Lew said.
The survival kits were directly funded by both FBLA and IFA club members, and students made inspirational cards to package along with the sacs.
“We wanted to include the cards to make the kits feel a bit more humanized,” IFA junior co-president Yash Sharma said. “They’ll know that there’s a person behind the kits, and this was our way of saying: ‘Hi.’ We made sure to include some sort of light hearted and uplifting message handwritten by our volunteers.”
By encouraging club members with volunteer hours, FBLA and IFA were able to gather 25 students to help assemble the kits.
Lew enjoyed the event because she knows the project contributed to a good cause: “A city council team member came by to thank us and shared how much our work meant to her, saying we were creating change,” she said. “The most rewarding part about working with Sacred Heart was definitely seeing the smiles on the office administrators’ faces when we dropped off the items; they looked really happy.”
