Grade 2 students recently had a great time painting and hand delivering some 100 colorful pumpkins to residents living near the lower school campus. They created the festive pumpkins on Oct. 23, then delivered them to the school’s immediate neighbors the following week.
The annual outreach and community service project is an expression of gratitude to the residents for being such good neighbors.
The painting took place in the lower school’s art room. The delivery entailed walking around the school’s neighborhood, leaving pumpkins and handwritten cards on porches or into the hands of the appreciative residents if they were home.
Showstoppers, the grades 7-8 girls dance team, was asked to perform at the 2015 Red Cross Innovation Celebration, which took place on Oct. 24. Showstoppers performed a great vampire-themed routine, despite having little time to prepare for this unexpected performance, as the girls were out for a week on the middle school class trips. Regardless of having little recovery time from their trips, the students were honored to have this opportunity and delivered a fabulous performance.
The Red Cross Innovation Celebration is the American Red Cross of the Silicon Valley’s annual fundraising event that benefits local emergency preparedness, response and recovery efforts for Silicon Valley’s 2 million residents. Go Showstoppers!
Last week, grade 11 student Riya Chandra appeared on a Girls Who Code panel at the Intel Education Visionaries Conference. Chandra participated in the Intel-sponsored seven-week Girls Who Code immersion program and was subsequently invited to be on the panel.
“As part of their conference, they wanted to put together a student panel to help give insight to educators. Intel asked Girls Who Code to choose two people to invite to speak, and I received an email with an invitation,” said Chandra.
During the panel, Chandra shared her background in computer science and discussed some of her projects. “It was great being able to receive so many amazing questions from these educators, because it showed how much they cared for their students,” she said. Harker computer science teacher Susan King was also in attendance, which Chandra appreciated. “It was truly special as she really made an impact in my life,” she said.
Chandra believes the panel benefited educators by giving them real insight into student experiences. “We gave them honest answers about how we like to learn and gave them advice,” she said. “I think this panel will benefit students in the future as these educators will take back what they learned from the panel and apply it to their teaching.”
Each year grade 9 students participate in the annual Freshman Community Service Day as an introduction to community service. This year marked the first time that the entire class performed its initial service day at one location: the Guadalupe River Park Conservancy in San Jose.
Some 196 freshman participated in the service learning project, which included a trail cleanup and nature walk, as well as an educational component. The outing kicked off what promises to be a meaningful year of local outreach work for the ninth graders. Throughout the school year, the students will have the opportunity to fulfill a variety community service jobs at a number of organizations.
The Guadalupe River Park Conservancy provides community leadership for the development and active use of the Guadalupe River Park & Gardens through education, advocacy and stewardship programs.
According to conservancy representatives, who welcomed the visit from the upper school, the learning portion of the student’s day included activities at three stations: “macroinvertebrates, dichotomous key for tree identification and a bio blitz.” The service experience, which immediately followed, focused on litter pick up.
Senior Shay Lari-Hosain feels fortunate to be able to spend his summers in Pakistan, performing meaningful outreach work under the direction of a recipient of a United Nations recognition award for the promotion of culture and peace. Especially since the recipient happens to be his grandmother.
Every year, shortly after school lets out, Lari-Hosain heads off to work at the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan (HFP), a humanitarian organization co-founded by his grandmother, Yasmeen Lari. He speaks with pride of Lari, who made history as Pakistan’s first woman architect. Most recently, she was one of a few architects featured in an Architectural Digest article.
In 2000, Lari retired from corporate practice and turned her attention to humanitarian work/poverty alleviation, Lari-Hosain explains. “That shift requires completely different types of architecture. Starting early on in her life, she was designing glass and metal corporate buildings and urban housing in Karachi … and now [she] designs environmentally sustainable, small housing units for completely different, rural settings,” he said.
Lari co-founded the HFP in 1980 with her husband, noted historian Suhail Zaheer Lari. Her profile has been included among 60 women from around the world who have contributed the most toward the objectives of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Last year, the Hilal-i-Imtiaz (The Crescent of Distinction) award was conferred on her by the government of Pakistan.
“I’ve been working at her foundation since I was an elementary school kid,” said Lari-Hosain, who most recently has done extensive marketing work for HFP’s Karachi office.
Lari-Hosain currently keeps busy as editor-in-chief of Wingspan, the upper school’s long-form magazine. Last February he brought his grandmother to Harker as a guest speaker, sharing her experiences with upper school journalists. She spoke about her work with education awareness programs, including women’s empowerment. She also shared stories about time spent training former militants, putting them on a different path to be more productive in rural society.
“My grandmother also has spoken on multiple occasions in Geneva (at the UN). In the past, she taught seminars at MIT and Harvard on architecture,” noted Lari-Hosain.
Lari-Hosain also worked to bring Al-Jazeera America’s “The Stream” co-host and Harker alumnus Wajahat Ali (MS ’94) to the upper school. Ali discussed his life as a Muslim-American during an assembly held on Sept. 19 in the gym. Lari-Hosain had the pleasure of introducing Ali during that assembly.
Last spring Lari-Hosain interviewed Ali for a Wingspan story regarding issues that Muslim-Americans face. That article got picked up by a Pakistani paper called DAWN, the leading English newspaper in Pakistan. Lari-Hosain’s article is linked here online.
Lari-Hosain said he was thrilled that Ali’s visit was such a success, and still generating continued conversation among upper school students and faculty alike. (Stay tuned for further coverage of Ali’s visit to Harker in the alumni section of the upcoming Winter 2015 issue of Harker Quarterly.)
On the evening of Sept. 12, senior Arun Shriram combined his love of music with his drive to help others by holding a fundraising concert on behalf of Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area.
Called “Around the World!” the concert, held at Good Samaritan United Methodist Church in Cupertino, showcased music from several different cultures. More than a dozen other Harker students were involved in the effort.
And, appearing on saxophone, was Harker staff member Alejandro Osorio, who works at Harker’s tech help desk. Of Shriram, Osorio said, “He’s a very good musician. He comes from a musical family and in his own right is really talented.”
“The concert was a phenomenal success!” noted Shriram, who learned to play the Indian drums from his father.
“I started this concert after being inspired by my role as an Indian percussionist in the San Francisco World Music Festival. There, there were professional musicians from countries all around the world, such as Tibet, India, China, Latin America, Korea, Azerbaijan and Uganda. I knew that a lot of my friends at school were very talented in music, and being an Indian percussionist as well as an orchestral percussionist, I was able to bring in friends from both worlds and present music from different parts of the globe. That’s why I called it ‘Around the World,’ and I chose the charity Make-A-Wish because I feel that their mission really aligned with me.”
The concert “was absolutely magical,” noted Smriti Koodanjeri, Harker chemistry teacher. “The artistry, love and giving from so many Harker students brought tears to my eyes. The fusion of Eastern and Western music was simply outstanding!”
Each year, tens of thousands of volunteers, donors and supporters like Shriram advance the Make-A-Wish effort to grant the wishes of children diagnosed with life-threatening medical conditions. In the United States and its territories, on average, a wish is granted every 37 minutes.
The event has raised over $3,900 and donations are still being accepted until Sept.23. For more information on how to donate, email 16ArunS@students.harker.org.
Check out the performer’s promo video as well as a videotaken during the live concert!
Senior Sharanya Balaji was featured in the San Jose Mercury News for her efforts to bring arts education to Grant Elementary School in San Jose. An avid practitioner of the ancient Indian dance style of Bharatanatyam, Balaji held a benefit dance show three years ago, raising $4,000 that enabled Grant Elementary to bring music, singing and dance lessons to campus. Last year, she held another benefit show and raised twice that amount. Her third dance concert was held Aug. 22, with the amount raised to be determined.
A chocolate chip cookie baking project and sale, sponsored by a new math class offered through Harker’s Summer Institute, raised $283.53 for the Humane Society of Silicon Valley.
“Lots of math was used to calculate how many cookies we could bake within our limited class time and oven constraints. In addition, the students had to determine the shopping list and recalculate a recipe based on that,” reported Eileen Schick, who taught the three-week summer school course called “The Eagle Project: Math!”
In addition to hosting the bake sale, the students also learned to use linear and nonlinear computer graphing techniques, as well as how to use online software to make three-dimensional castles. The castles were then printed using a 3D printer, and the students calculated their volume and surface areas.
The class comprised mostly incoming grade 6 honors math students, with a few grade 7 students and two advanced fifth graders, Schick said.
There was a time when Eesha Chona, a rising senior and founder of an online community for children and teens whose loved ones are battling cancer, felt like she was leading a double life.
Chona’s world changed suddenly when her mother was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer a year and a half ago. That’s when she felt like she was leading two separate lives: one at home, the other at school. At home in Saratoga, she dealt with her mother’s diagnosis, surgery and recovery. At school, she pretended everything was fine.
“Life during the months of trying to accept my new reality was awful,” she said. “But I couldn’t complain as I wasn’t the one with breast cancer. I didn’t realize that when a person is diagnosed with cancer, everyone close to them is diagnosed as well.”
Feeling isolated and alone, she turned to her brother (Harker alumnus Aneesh Chona ’13) for support. Several weeks after their mother’s diagnosis, he encouraged and helped her to follow up on an idea she had to support others in her situation by launching a nonprofit organization called Association of Teens Against Cancer (ATAC).
ATAC now offers an online community for children and teens whose loved ones have been diagnosed with cancer. An interactive educational program on the website (www.atacnow.com) helps users understand the various adult cancers and their treatments. The site also contains a directory of hotlines that teenagers can use during a crisis.
Chona stressed that her brother’s help was and is still vital to ATAC’s success. “I turned to him with my initial idea and together [we] advanced it. He mentored and guided me in marketing an organization and launching it. He also oversees the financials of the company, does the accounting to keep track of donations and important financial metrics, and analyzes the overall efficiency of the organization,” she explained, adding that her brother also runs the ATAC Philadelphia office and networks with local nonprofits interested in partnering with them.
In addition to her work on ATAC, Chona participated in AVON’s 39-mile walk for breast cancer awareness; she was later selected to join its national youth crew to help out with the walk. She also has worked extensively with Bay Area Cancer Connections (BCC), a Palo Alto-based nonprofit organization that provides support for cancer patients and their spouses.
At the request of BCC, she authored an online monthly journal, titled “A Teen’s Journey With Her Mother” (http://www.bcconnections.org/author/eesha/), to help incorporate support for children of cancer patients into their program. This summer, she also started her own therapy class at BCC: “Photo Stories: A Hands-On Family Collage Class.”
“My mother and I always bonded through crafting collages together. After she was diagnosed with cancer, the collages I made on my own supported her through her treatment. I felt that since BCC lacked a class involving children, the best class would be one that brings families together,” she said, noting that she hopes to spread the class to other nonprofits in the Bay Area.
Recently, Chona also started working with Shanti, a nonprofit organization that provides financial and emotional support to San Francisco’s most vulnerable women living with life-threatening illnesses. Chona’s involvement with Shanti helped her realize that not everyone diagnosed with cancer has access the proper treatment or care. That realization prompted her to return to her roots in India, home to some of the poorest populations in the world, where breast cancer has become the leading cancer in the country.
“Over the past two years, I’ve raised money through ATAC and have decided to ‘atac’ 11 specific, untapped villages near my parents’ home city. I’ve raised enough money to sponsor two villages to receive breast screening and prostate exams as well as mammograms … basic health care that these men and women would otherwise never obtain,” she said. When BCC found out about Chona’s work in India, the organization offered to further support her cause by donating prosthetics, wigs, scarves and specialized clothing to any individuals who are found to have cancer and need ongoing invasive treatment.
Chona also has partnered with Roko Cancer, a nonprofit based in London for which she recently became an international grand ambassador. Come spring, her role with Roko Cancer will take her to India for an intensive, hands-on experience working in the villages ATAC sponsors. She will assist with patient exams/screenings, as well as meet with the children of patients.
“Not only are we sponsoring villages for cancer screenings, but will also start providing a channel to support ongoing care with supplies for those individuals who are positively diagnosed, which is something they would not have been able to afford due to their vulnerable circumstances,” she said.
Last summer Chona became a local leader with the American Cancer Society (ACS). As the youth rally and engagement lead for ACS’s Silicon Valley chapter, she was responsible for reaching out to Bay Area high schools and providing them with information about ACS and the benefits of teen involvement. In addition, as the Pink Ambassador for all Bay Area high schools, she visited many schools to educate teens about cancer, screening and prevention, as well as ways in which they could reach out and support cancer patients. She was offered this position again for the upcoming year and is looking forward to continuing to educate and empower more teenagers across the Bay Area.
Recognizing Chona’s overall outreach efforts, the nonprofit organization ZERO Breast Cancer nominated her for its “Honor Thy Healer” award. By using her circumstances as a tool to reach out and help others, Chona said she has increased her knowledge, not just about cancer, but also about starting a nonprofit, marketing it, coding a website and updating features.
I addition to its website, ATAC is also on Facebook and Twitter, and soon will be on the App Store with an iPhone App she created called Send a Ribbon. The app enables children to support their loved ones who have cancer by drawing a personalized cancer ribbon and sending it via email with a caring message.
“Hopefully ATAC will broaden its horizons from five nonprofits and hundreds of users to thousands all across the globe, teaching children to not be scared of reality and helping them understand that they have their own community a few computer keys away, consisting of friends who share and care,” said Chona.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2015 Harker Quarterly.
For the ninth year in a row, young cancer patients attending Camp Okizu will benefit from the annual Harker Cancer Walk.
On March 24, students, parents, family members, faculty and staff from Harker’s four campuses united at the middle school field for the walk, which has become a beloved annual tradition.
Cindy Ellis, middle school head, was thrilled to report that “between the baked goods, smoothies, shirts and donations, we raised over $10,000!”
Located in the Berry Creek area of the Sierra foothills and mirroring a residential camp experience, Camp Okizu provides a safe place for children with cancer to enjoy regular summer camp activities and social events.
The name Okizu (oak-eye-zoo) comes from the Sioux language and means “unity.” Camp Okizu is free of charge to all attendees, but it costs $700 to $1,000 to provide a weeklong camp experience for one child. Therefore, the camp relies on donations, making fundraising efforts such as the Harker Cancer Walk incredibly important.
“There’s always a moment at each Cancer Walk when I stop and look around at everything that’s going on. People are smiling, laughing and talking. There’s hustle and bustle in front of various tables. And even though the event can be a reminder of something sad, it also can be a reminder of those wonderful days gone by,” recalled Michael Schmidt, middle school computer science teacher and department chair, who had the idea for the fundraiser following the passing of his own mother due to cancer.
Today, he said, he no longer views the Cancer Walk as just a tribute to his mother “as much as I think of it as a tribute to the people and relationships I’ve experienced at Harker. Thank you all for sharing that with me.”
Prior to the walk, students engaged in activities to learn about different forms of cancer and cancer prevention strategies. In a further show of support for the fundraising effort, many teachers displayed door decorations with themes designed to promote cancer awareness.
For more information about Camp Okizu: http://www.okizu.org/about.