By Khalida Sarwari
It was Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, but a man from a different era said the words that set the “Day of Service” activities in motion at Saratoga High School: “Charity begins at home.”
For the third year in a row, nearly 150 students came together at the school to put into practice the words of wisdom written in Charles Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit. They pulled weeds, planted flowers, made sandwiches for the hungry and homeless, and designed cards for soldiers and the elderly.
Taking a break from packaging dried food packages for national organization Stop Hunger Now, junior Nikhil Goel, 16, reflected on how glad he was to help the group feed students in developing countries such as Afghanistan and Haiti.
“Knowing we’re helping 60,000 people get a meal is a pretty fulfilling experience,” he said.
Nikhil was one of about 40 students who signed up to partake in the Stop Hunger Now activity inside the school’s dance studio. The students formed four teams: one to weigh the products, which consisted of rice, a vitamin packet, soy, and dried vegetables; another to seal the packets; a third to count them; and a fourth to place them in boxes to be shipped to the local Stop Hunger Now branch in San Leandro.
The cost of each packet, said Mary Eschen, a member of the Heavens Helping Hand foundation, is about 25 cents and feeds up to six people. It cost $2,500 to purchase the 10,000 meals, said Eschen, who helped supervise the activity.
“It’s a twofer–the kids are getting fed and they’re getting educated at the same time,” she said.
To junior Ritwik Roy, 16, learning that about 1 billion people in the world are hungry was “eye-opening.”
“That’s a lot of people,” he said.
Meanwhile, about 20 students gathered in the staff lounge to assemble care packages for troops deployed overseas. Some packages included toiletries such as shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, razors, tissues, floss, mouthwash, conditioner, lotion, body wash and a bar of soap. Other packages consisted of trail mix, a protein bar, a granola bar, oatmeal, gum or breath freshener, hot chocolate, candy and beef jerky.
They assembled 300 packages to be delivered to Operation Care and Comfort, which will send the packages to troops stationed in countries such as Afghanistan. Many of the items were donated by other schools in the community as well as businesses, including the dental offices of Dr. Divya Doshi and Dr. Bill Miller and his wife Dr. Julie Savant.
And just like the Stop Hunger Now kids, the students here also divided into teams and then created an assembly line to organize and assemble the packages.
“It seemed like running a business–organizing a bunch of different people to do different jobs,” remarked junior Austin Du, 16, one of the students who led the activity.
But Austin and his fellow schoolmates never lost sight of the importance of their task.
“It feels good to help soldiers overseas,” he said. “People overseas deserve our help, too.”
That sentiment could be felt throughout the school. After helping make spaghetti to feed about 100 people at a shelter in San Jose that evening, senior Nivedita Rajendiran, 17, said she had a feeling of accomplishment.
“It feels good,” she said. “I love cooking so I thought it would be fun.”
Nivedita was one of 20 students who helped make not only spaghetti with meatballs, but a fruit salad, vegetable salad, brownies, garlic bread and steamed vegetables.
In the cafeteria, another group of students made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that they placed in brown bags along with chips, applesauce and juice boxes to be distributed by a church to the homeless in San Jose.
And at a neighboring table, 25 kids sat around a long table with red and white cards, colored pencils and stickers spread out in front of them. They made a total of about 250 Valentine’s cards for those at the Saratoga Senior Center and thank-you cards for soldiers with messages such as, “Thank you for your service and dedication.”
“It’s very fun doing arts and crafts, and I like the fact that while I’m doing arts and crafts, I’m helping make somebody else’s day better,” said Sarah Deva, a 15-year-old sophomore.
Outside the McAfee Center, the school’s performing arts center, another group of about 30 students donned gardening gloves and pushed around blue wheelbarrows as part of an effort to beautify their own school campus.
“We dug out weeds, planted lavender and put bark on top of the soil,” said freshman Gautam Prabhu, 14. “It just seemed like a fun thing to do to make our school look nicer.”
Sponsored by the school’s parent-teacher organization, the Day of Service event started at Saratoga High in 2010 after President Obama declared Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday as a day for residents to give back to their community, according to Sujatha Mudupalli, one of two co-chairs of the event.
“We’re delivering the president’s call to service,” she said.
The event seems to be increasing in popularity and drawing students from every grade, she said. About 135 students registered to volunteer this year, as opposed to 80 student volunteers in 2012.
And although charity begins at home, its impact is often widespread. Junior Dharini Ramaswamy, 16, said she often makes fruit salad for herself and her family at home, but that it was nice to make it for someone more in need.
“I just felt that it’s important we take some time and help them instead of worrying about our Saratoga world,” she said.
