Clubs collectively raised $1,509.47 in a fundraiser for Afghanistan refugees by selling a variety of goods to members of the community on Oct. 29 and 31.
UNICEF Club proposed the Project Peace Wheel fundraiser, and after coordination with the ASB Community Service committee, many other clubs joined the cause. Featured clubs included Japanese National Honor Society (JNHS), Harker Amnesty, Art Club, Robotics, Tri-M Honor Society, Table Tennis Club, Key Club and UNICEF Club.
Among the items sold included food and drinks like UNICEF’s Cup Noodles, JNHS’s matcha and passion fruit mochi donuts, Key Club’s homemade cookies and Table Tennis Club’s boba. Art Club’s officer team designed stickers which they had at their booth, Amnesty Club sold do it yourself charm bracelets and Robotics distributed pins.
Hoping to host more diverse fundraising, ASB Community Service committee initially suggested a farmer’s market-style event for many clubs to contribute, and after UNICEF recommended initiatives in aiding Afghanistan, the committee decided to merge the two ideas into Project Peace Wheel.
ASB posted fliers throughout the campus encouraging clubs to support the cause. Junior member Luke Wu also contacted clubs who expressed interest in helping out. He emphasized the importance of planning and logistics to make sure the event ran smoothly, whether from placement of tables to standardizing pricings.
“There always needs to be constant communication between student council and the different clubs that are engaging in this fundraiser,” Luke said. “We ended up having like two clubs sort of drop out because people were sick, and that may be in part because we didn’t hold them accountable enough in our emails. Moving forward for any initiative in general, there needs to be constant dialogue and accountability.
President of Amnesty Club Valerie Li (12) shared how the club’s participation with Project Peace Wheel and contribution to its cause aligned with its mission to support global human rights.
“With the Afghan refugees, especially children coming here right now, it is a super prevalent problem,” Valerie said. “It’s important to be able to provide them the resources when they migrate over here and to support human rights there as well which is why I think the goal is aligned with our club.”
Sophomore Nicole Dean, member of the ASB Community Service committee, reflected on the process of putting the fundraiser together and the difficulties her committee faced in managing such a large project.
“The highlight was definitely seeing it all come together at the end because we really weren’t sure if we were even going to be able to get [the fundraiser] done,” Nicole said. “There’s a lot of obstacles to get through, and we were really tight on that deadline.”
Additional reporting by Risa Chokhawala and Cynthia Xie.