Amy Jin ‘18, currently attending Harvard, is now a team member for the Crown Education Challenge, an international contest for K-12 students that contains tracks in art, STEM and writing. Founded in March in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent wave of worldwide school closures, the contest hopes to inspire students to continue their learning, become active in global issues and foster hope in troubled times.
The contest’s theme is finding hope during a pandemic, and each category encourages students to submit work relating to the theme. For the art category, students are invited to submit visual art, music, digital art, films and dance pieces. STEM submissions can include original research on ways pandemics can be prevented or addressed in the future, taking the form of posters, videos, apps or other media. Writers may submit journalistic pieces, poetry, short stories, screenplays, podcasts or essays relating to the theme.
Submissions are being accepted until 11:59 p.m. Pacific time on May 31.
Sixth graders Anika Akkiraju, Shloka Chawla, Pavitra Kasthuri and Danielle Steinbach spent their spring break devising a way to help medical workers dealing with PPE shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic. After meeting via Zoom, the students launched a fundraising campaign on April 1 to collect donations to purchase the equipment. By the end of the campaign, the students had raised nearly $11,000, which they used to buy 3,000 masks and 1,000 face shields for Kaiser Permanente, which were delivered late last week.
“Despite being quarantined and unable to connect with each other, we have created memories that remind us to continue serving the community and have succeeded in helping others,” said Chawla. “The experience has taught us valuable lessons, and together we had lots of fun.”
A group of Harker parents organized via the Chinese messaging app WeChat has been gathering and donating protective supplies to local hospitals. More than 100 families are involved with the effort, according to Harker parent Jing Wang (Cynthia, grade 5), who organized the group. As of mid-April, thousands of supplies have been donated, including more than 3,000 surgical masks and more than 1,000 N95 masks, as well as hundreds of face shields, handmade masks, shoe covers and more.
Hospitals that have received the goods include Kaiser Permanente centers through Santa Clara County, as well as Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose and Eden Hospital in Castro Valley. The group plans to keep sending supplies during the pandemic, and students are also busy creating posters. Photos of their donation activities also recently appeared on NBC Bay Area.
In response to reports that Michigan was experiencing a troubling surge in COVID-19 cases, fourth grader Brandon Du and his mother, Yimin Zimmerer, last week sent supplies to Beaumont Hospital in Michigan to help its workers deal with the spread.
Du and Zimmerer had been donating to local hospitals and became “concerned by the rapid development in Michigan,” Zimmerer said. “It breaks our heart to see all the brave people fighting on the front line with insufficient protection.” They reached out to lower school English teacher Ann Smitherman, who is originally from Michigan and whose brothers, both former mayors, still live there. They recommended contacting Beaumont Hospital, and soon Du and Zimmerer had arranged to send a shipment containing 500 masks, 130 gowns and 130 pairs of goggles.
Zimmerer reported that the hospital staff was very happy to receive the supplies.
Earlier this week, Harker parent Virag Saksena (Riva, grade 12, and Anya, grade 8) and his team at 10th Street Distillery were recognized on Facebook by San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo for converting their business into a producer of hand sanitizer to assist medical personnel and homeless residents.
Saksena’s 10th Street Distillery normally produces single-malt whisky, but the extraordinary circumstances brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic presented a unique opportunity. “Something clicked when I heard that first responders and hospitals that put their own lives at risk everyday were unable to get hand sanitizer,” Saksena said. “Our distillery has a never-ending supply of the key ingredient for sanitizer: alcohol. So it was a no brainer to help out by making sanitizer.”
Shifting from making spirits to hand sanitizers was not a quick and easy process, Saksena recalled. “Before we could start production, we needed formulation approved by [the] FDA,” he said. “We didn’t want to make something which was ineffective or possibly even dangerous based upon internet recipes.” The FDA’s requirement that hand sanitizers be 80 percent alcohol was one of the main obstacles, because whisky must be distilled below 80 percent to be in accordance with the law. “Our whisky is typically distilled around 70 percent and aged at 55-62 percent,” said Saksena. “So we had to figure out how to change the process to reach 80 percent-plus alcohol content.”
The original intention, Saksena said, was to donate the hand sanitizers, “but most hospitals and cities offered to cover our costs. They had the budgets but couldn’t find the product.” Moreover, California-bound trucks carrying hand sanitizer were being diverted to other areas by the federal government. “So they wanted local companies to produce the product,” Saksena noted. Each week about 500 gallons is being provided to the city of San Jose; 50 to 100 gallons are being sent to El Camino Hospital; and the city of Santa Clara is receiving 50 gallons. A nominal fee is charged to cover costs. “We are also working with homeless shelters and health care providers,” Saksena said. “Some have budgets and can pay for it, others can’t. One of the things we will be doing is to sell to commercial business providing essential services and use that to subsidize donations for charities.”
When the demand for hand sanitizer has comfortably receded, Saksena and the staff at 10th Street Distillery are hoping to “go back to doing what we do best: distilling single-malt whiskies.” As they began making sanitizers, Saksena was pleased to discover that their whiskies had been winners at the San Francisco Spirits Competition, earning Gold and Double Gold.
For now, Saksena said, “I feel blessed that we have found a way to aid our community in these trying times.”
Last month, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sabrina Paseman ’09 founded the nonprofit Fix the Mask, which has developed a do-it-yourself method for constructing a surgical mask brace using rubber bands. The pandemic has caused a surge in demand for N95 surgical masks, leading to a shortage that has put medical workers at risk of infection, as the surgical masks currently in use do not attach to wearers’ faces tightly enough. The surgical mask brace developed by Fix the Mask significantly improves the efficacy of surgical masks and lowers the risk of infection. The company has posted a how-to video for creating the mask braces, and is working on “Surgical Mask Brace 2.0, a scalable, open source design,” according to its website.