This article was originally published in the spring 2013 Harker Quarterly.
With the knowledge that there is nothing like a favorite “blankie” to comfort a suffering child, grade 7 middle school students in Karina Momary’s and Julie Pinzás’ advisories teamed up in early February to create blankets for donation to the South Bay chapter of Project Linus.
A volunteer-driven nonprofit organization giving blankets to children who are seriously ill or living in shelters, Project Linus works to provide a sense of security, warmth and comfort through the donation of handmade, washable blankets lovingly created by volunteer makers, or “blanketeers.”
The blanket creation for Project Linus was the middle school’s community service project for this year. Working in pairs, students produced 12 blankets for donation to the local branch of Project Linus.
To date, Project Linus has delivered more than 4,000,000 security blankets to children around the world and has nearly 400 chapters in the United States. Although the organization originally donated blankets to pediatric cancer patients, recipients now include any child who is seriously ill or traumatized in some way.
“What a great opportunity to be able to use our advisory time to make a collaborative impact on our community to help children in need of comfort,” said Pinzás.
This article was originally published in the spring 2013 Harker Quarterly.
Students at the lower school were greeted with an afternoon of great weather in early March, after a night of rain, for this year’s Jump Rope for Heart event.
By the time the K-5 youngsters got out on the blacktop of the Bucknall campus to celebrate having raised $997 to date for the American Heart Association, the ground was dry and perfect for jumping rope, high jumping onto soft mats, limboing, leaping over makeshift hurdles, crawling through obstacle courses, shooting baskets and other fun activities.
Some teachers got in on the action, too, as each grade level rotated to different stations for various activities, held both outside and inside the school’s gym. Unlike previous times, this year’s event was held during P.E. classes, instead of as a whole school happening.
Students also had the option to take a quick break and enjoy some healthy snacks over by the lunch tables. Nearby was the “Heart Wall,” where they could attach small paper hearts adorned with special messages for loved ones or others in need.
Donations were still rolling in after the activities ended. Earlier, while encouraging his colleagues to attend the event, Jim McGovern, P.E. assistant department chair, had said, “We encourage everyone to be involved in the fun by coming to the gym and watching the students participate in all the activities. If you have never seen kindergartners or first graders jump rope, it will be a special treat!”
This article was originally published in the spring 2013 Harker Quarterly.
In February, Rohan Chandra, grade 12, was presented with an award for being a distinguished finalist by The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, which annually recognizes and honors young people nationwide who have volunteered to help their communities.
Chandra created earthquake preparedness kits for the senior citizens of his Fremont neighborhood, creating safety guides in a variety of languages, including English, Spanish, Farsi, Hindi and Mandarin. With the help of dozens of volunteers, Chandra raised more than $12,000 to make the project possible.
The award came with a letter from the office of President Barack Obama, thanking Chandra for his efforts.
In December, Chandra was also named the first-place winner of the Kids Who Give contest for the period ending Sept. 30. The Kids Who Give program, sponsored by Farm Rich, recognizes young citizens who devise solutions to help their local communities. As a quarterly winner, Chandra was awarded $3,500.
This article was originally published in the spring 2013 Harker Quarterly.
What began as a holiday seasonal community project has evolved into a larger, new schoolwide outreach program called HarKare (Harker Cares).
HarKare launched with its first project, making ornaments to accompany classroom Christmas trees donated from the lower, middle and upper school campuses to underprivileged families.
To that end, about 40 Harker parents and children of varying ages took time out on a Sunday in December to gather for the ornament-making event.
“HarKare will create opportunities for kids and whole families to participate in all sorts of community projects going on all year, not just during the holiday season,” enthused Teré Aceves, lower school volunteer program director at Harker.
In February there were two HarKare initiatives running nearly simultaneously: a book exchange on Feb. 8 and a volunteer effort with the organization Sea Scavenger the following day.
This article was originally published in the spring 2013 Harker Quarterly.
The school recently donated hundreds of pairs of pajamas and five boxes of books to this year’s pajama drive, which ran from Jan. 7-18. While the exact final numbers are still being counted, Pallie Zambrano, co-president of the Pajama Program’s Northern and Central California chapter, reported that this year’s drive brings Harker’s total donations to more than 2,000 pairs of pajamas and 2,400 books.
The Bucknall campus pajama and book drive is held during the heart of winter, when needy children especially want to keep warm. This year, Harker students donated a range of books and pajamas (with the tags still on) in sizes ranging from toddler through young adult. The drive was primarily a grade 3 service project, and all elementary school families were invited to participate.
This article was originally published in the spring 2013 Harker Quarterly.
They call themselves “trash warriors.”
Upper school history teacher Carol Zink discovered the California Adopt-a-Highway program and made Harker aware of it. Now she is joined by fellow faculty, parents and students in the litter roundup. The last trash pickup day took place on Feb. 16.
Over the years, the trash warriors have picked up some interesting finds during their trashathons, including a loaded shotgun shell (turned over to the police), a pair of nearly new high heels, an expensive motorcycle helmet, and a rubber Halloween mask.
This article was originally published in the spring 2013 Harker Quarterly.
Students collected nearly 30 prom dresses for girls who need them. Sheridan Tobin, grade 10, and Shannon Hong, grade 9, took it upon themselves to solicit the donations from fellow students for the Princess Project, which promotes self-confidence and individual beauty by providing free prom dresses and accessories to high school girls who cannot otherwise afford them.
“Collecting the dresses is great, but it’s really about so much more than that. It’s about boosting these girls’ self- confidence and giving them a chance to forget whatever hardships they may be going through and giving them a night that can be all about them,” explained Tobin.
“I think that sometimes we take opportunities that we are given for granted,” added Hong. “There are plenty of girls in San Jose who would be so glad for just one dress out of the many in our closets.”
The Princess Project has served more than 20,000 teens through the dedication of more than 2,000 volunteers. Volunteers sort dresses and organize accessories for girls living in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and San Diego.
What began as a holiday seasonal community project has evolved into a larger, new schoolwide outreach program called HarKare (Harker Cares).
HarKare launched with its first project, making ornaments to accompany Christmas trees already slated to be donated from the lower, middle and upper school campuses to underprivileged families. During the holiday season Harker has Christmas trees or wreaths in nearly all of its 200 classrooms. This year, some 45 teachers volunteered to preserve their trees so they could be given out as part of the donation program.
To that end, about 40 Harker parents and children of varying ages took time out on a Sunday in December to gather for the ornament-making event, which had been earlier promoted by grade level coordinators. Using recycled paper, students in Pat Walsh’s grade 5 math class also contributed to the HarKare project by making paper hut ornaments.
“HarKare will create opportunities for kids and whole families to participate in all sorts of community projects going on all year, not just during the holiday season,” enthused Tere Aceves, lower school volunteer program director at Harker.
“This is not going to be another drive at our school but is going to be an ongoing program,” she elaborated, adding that the goal of HarKare is to create family involvement for community service projects, teach kids the value of giving and helping others and “use our creativity, elbow grease and spirits to make a difference.”
Already, HarKare members have tossed around a number of ideas for future projects including collecting clothes and household goods for those in need, preparing meals for the homeless, and helping local neighborhoods in a myriad of other ways.
“These are all very easy and really rewarding projects,” noted Aceves. “We are striving to involve our kids and teach them values coming from the heart.”
In February there will be two HarKare initiatives running nearly simultaneously: a book exchange on Feb. 8 and a volunteer effort with the organization Sea Scavenger the following day.
“Not only will Harker students give back to their community by cleaning up local waterways, but they will give back to the world by preventing plastic pollution from reaching the oceans,” said Aceves, adding that students may subsequently take on leadership roles to help create such awareness, shifting cultural values away from a disposable plastic society.
Sea Scavenger has been named the official shoreline restoration and clean-up partner of the 34th annual America’s Cup, which takes place in San Francisco this year. Together, with Sea Scavenger volunteers, HarKare participants will work collaboratively with sailors and staff from the America’s Cup teams in support of marine ecosystems.
Those interested in becoming involved with the upcoming book exchange, shoreline clean-up, and other future activities of the new HarKare program are urged to contact Aceves at terea@harker.org for more information.
This story recently appeared in the winter 2012 edition of Harker Quarterly.
Students Clean Up the Coast
Almost 50 community members stepped up in September for the 26th annual California Coastal Cleanup Day. Inspired by this year’s lower school theme of compassion, parent volunteer Kelly Lewis Brezoczky (Katherine, grade 3; Charlotte, grade 5; Emma, grade 7) coordinated Harker’s participation, and service and spirit club advisor Katie Molin invited grade 4 and 5 families to help pick up debris littered across Pillar Point and Pilarcitos Creek in Half Moon Bay.
Youth Citizen of the Year
Tara Rezvani, grade 12, was recognized at Los Gatos’ Youth Park Citizen Day on Sept. 29 as one of Los Gatos’ Youth Citizens of the Year. Among Rezvani’s many accomplishments are organizing a health camp for children, volunteer work at El Camino Hospital and induction to the National French Honor Society.
Collecting Food for the Needy
The Service Club at the middle school ran a canned food drive and, for each item, students were given a strip of construction paper to hang in the windows of Activity Avenue to create a colorful, proud display of Harker’s giving spirit. The lower school also ran their annual food drive, organized for more than 20 years as the grade 5 service project by teacher Pat Walsh. Donations all went to St. Justin’s Church in Santa Clara. Walsh noted St. Justin’s provides groceries and hot meals all year long.
Advisories Help Prep Toiletries for Donation
Pat White, middle school history teacher, ran a toiletry drive again this year for the gloria Travis Center for Homeless Women and Children. White’s advisory sorts and bags donated items for delivery. White hopes to deliver about 500 sandwich bags of toiletries.
Holiday Gift Giving in Full Swing
Three different programs collected gifts for those in need. Family Supportive Housing, which runs the Adopt-a-Family program, collects holiday wish lists from families in need which are distributed to those who want to help out during the holiday season.
The Family Giving Tree matches givers up to individuals rather than families. This is Harker’s third year participating. Patricia Lai Burrows, an English teacher at the middle school, said, “Last year, we successfully fulfilled 200 wishes, and this year, I signed up to fulfill 350 wishes.” Currently, Harker is on track to fulfill 400.
Sunday Friends, a nonprofit that helps families in need, put together a list of holiday gift items their families would enjoy. The sophomore class used this year’s homecoming theme of Disney movies for inspiration and selected “Toy Story.” They made a giant toy box featuring characters from the movie, and each of the 185 members of the sophomore class donated a toy for Sunday Friends.
Giving to Our Furry Friends
Andrea Milius and Mark Gelineau, middle school teachers, wanted to do something special for this year’s family picnic theme of “Paws, Jaws and Claws” (click here for the picnic wrapup). They encouraged their advisories to do chores at home to earn money and then split the $230 in earnings between National Geographic’s campaign, “Create an Uproar” to save big cats, and a wolf pack at a sanctuary in Mississippi.
Hurricane Sandy Relief
The lower school took initiative in the wake of Hurricane Sandy and connected with Coney Island Preparatory School in New York, where 30 students lost their homes and 30 more families lost their cars. The administration at Coney Island Preparatory is offering storm victims modest grants. To help them achieve this goal, the student council at the lower school sold cups of hot chocolate on the playground over the course of several days and took donations. Business was brisk, and the entire amount was donated directly to the Coney Island Preparatory families.
An abridged version of this article was originally published in the fall 2012 Harker Quarterly.
By Mark Brada
Editor’s note: Mark Brada teaches upper school physics. He submitted this article after chaperoning Harker’s Costa Rican adventure.
On July 27, 14 Harker students and two teachers left their homes and set out for an adventure in the wilds of Costa Rica. Upper school chemistry teacher Mala Raghavan and I accompanied grade 11 students Adarsh Battu, Allen Cheng, Albert Chu, Tiffany Chu, Nathan Dhablania, Darian Edvalson, Chris Fu, Dennis Moon, Daniel Pak, Shreyas Parthasarathy and Renu Singh and grade 12 students Jonathan Cho, Zoya Khan and Alice Tsui. Upon landing in the Alajuela airport we were met by our guide, Jimmy Trejos, who took us to breakfast at a hotel overlooking the central valley of Costa Rica before boarding a small 20-seat airplane bound for the Nicoya peninsula. From there we took a bus to the Absolute Reserve at Cabo Blanco National Park, one of the most remote sections of the country.
We were also welcomed by professors Milton and Diana Lieberman, who proceeded to give the students a crash course in doing field research in the tropics. This involved lectures, brainstorming sessions, guidied hiking and snorkeling sessions, as well as many hours of collecting and analyzing samples.The students undertook a variety of research projects, including a project to identify and characterize body wall oscines in two species of sea cucumbers and a project that examined the shell selection criteria of marine hermit crabs. After three-and-a-half days of this, it was time to move to a new venue: Caramonal Beach to observe marine turtles and to perform some community service.
We all went with our guides, Nelson and Jimmy, at around 8 p.m. to the beach and were greeted by an olive ridley turtle that had just came up from the water to lay her eggs. Once she finished making her nest and had moved back to the water, Nelson, who is the director of the Caramonal Beach National Wildlife Refuge, dug up the nest and moved the eggs to a location that is safe from egg poachers as well as other predators. The entire experience was both amazing and humbling.
The next morning we headed to the University of Georgia research station in the San Luis Valley below the Monteverde cloud forest. Here the students continued to work on their research projects. Their projects culminated in an evening colloquium where they presented their preliminary research findings to a public audience. Their presentations were incredibly detailed and showed a great deal of insight into the problems that they had investigated while in the country. I was particularly impressed with the questions that the students asked after each presentation, which showed that they not only grasped the other students’ presentations, but had been able to glean the key information and provide helpful feedback to them as well. Overall the night was a resounding success.
The students also enjoyed a great time in the country, including some white water rafting, zip-lining through the forests near Monteverde and taking a chocolate tour in the Sarapiqui region, where we saw a great deal of wildlife. We saw dozens of different species including keel-billed toucans, white-faced monkeys, a caiman and blue jeans poison dart frogs to name just a few. Everyone had a great time on this remarkable trip.