Members of the classes of 2018 and 2019 have organized a fundraiser for Black Lives Matter, The Bail Project and Campaign Zero. Their statement, including details on how to donate and provide additional support, is as follows:
Hello Harker students, alumni, faculty and family,
In light of explicit police brutality and racial injustice, we are starting a fundraiser to support Black solidarity organizations. Donations will be split equally between Black Lives Matter, The Bail Project and Campaign Zero. Black Lives Matter drives the cultural movement for Black justice, The Bail Project combats mass incarceration and Campaign Zero researches policy solutions to end police brutality. To donate, Venmo @HarkerBLM or go directly through harkerblm.org.
Please give if you can and consider transforming your allyship into effective action. The goal is to help these organizations do important work long after the social media incentives fade.
Here are more educational resources to help you learn, protest and use your voice to help others do the same: https://bit.ly/harkerblm.
Earlier this month, brothers Hassaan and Senan Ebrahim – graduates of the classes of 2011 and 2008, respectively – were featured in The Harvard Gazette for their work in helping Syrian refugees via software their organization developed specifically for the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hassaan and Senan founded the 501(c)(3) Hikma Health in 2018 to create software organizations can use to provide better health care to refugees. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, health care workers needed a way to evaluate symptoms and risk factors. Hikma developed a tool workers could use to screen patients without the need for internet access, which is often lacking or nonexistent in the areas in which they work.
According to the article, the Ebrahim brothers are exploring ways to help spread the tool to more refugee camps. For the time being, they have released it for free to all organizations via GitHub.
Earlier this week, upper school students dropped off 640 homemade masks at the Bay Area-based organization LifeMoves, which provides temporary housing and assistance to the local homeless population. The masks are intended to provide much-needed protection to homeless people who are among the most vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic because they cannot socially distance as effectively as those with homes. The upper school’s Medical Club, Key Club and Student Council collaborated on the initiative, which kicked off in late April. Students received directions on how to create the masks, and a special drop-off area was set aside at the upper school campus so that the students could safely deliver the masks without leaving their cars.
A group of Harker upper school students – ninth graders Mir Bahri, Samvita Gautham, Eileen Ma, Dominick Piscione, Jessica Tang, Deeya Viradia and Carol Wininger; and juniors Ethan Choi and Natasha Yen – launched a GoFundMe campaign last month to assist low-income families who are facing greater difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic due to job loss. The group plans to give a portion of the proceeds to a local family-owned restaurant, so that it can distribute meals to people facing food scarcity as well as small businesses impacted by the pandemic. The remaining funds will be donated to Second Harvest Food Bank, which is struggling to meet the swelling demand of its customers.
In addition, the students also plan to provide online tutoring to area students who cannot attend school due to closures.
Over spring break, middle school math chair Vandana Kadam spent her spare time teaching math online to students who were unable to attend school due closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. She asked some of her current students, as well as former students who are now at the upper school, if they would like to assist, and seventh grader Jonathan Xue, eighth graders Claire Luo, Julie Shi, Cynthia Wang, Michelle Wei, Olivia Xu and Ella Yee, and ninth graders Riya Gupta, Stephen Xia and Sally Zhu all jumped at the chance to help. The sessions have continued past spring break and now take place twice a week. “It is so rewarding to see our students taking time from their busy schedules to help other students,” Kadam said. “They do it with tremendous dedication ensuring that the students benefit from the coaching.”
The upper school ASB and Student Council have launched a donation drive to support Silicon Valley Strong, an initiative started by San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo that delivers aid to households put at risk of displacement during the COVID-19 pandemic due to factors such as illness, joblessness and lack of income. Small businesses and local organizations also are receiving assistance. The donation drive, which runs from today until Sunday, was launched to provide Silicon Valley Strong with more funding, which has become necessary due to the high demand for aid.
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.”