Create for Kids is a service club at Aliso Niguel High School that was founded this year as a chapter for a larger nonprofit. The focus of the club is to help children in hospitals by providing them joy through cards and lights.
Club President Ira Adnaik (11) says joining her club is an “opportunity to make a difference in [the] community…by doing something that you enjoy.”
Adnaik—along with Vice President Ansh Sharma (11), Secretary Jahnavi Jha (11), Treasurer Zoe Vovan (11) and Social Media Manager Giselle Rivera (11)—finds and designs events for club members to volunteer in.
Create for Kids hosts meetings at lunch twice a month where club members create cards with their own artwork and funny jokes to cheer up the children in the hospitals they will be sent to. Adnaik wants the cards to feature fun designs that will make the children smile because they do not want to remind the pediatric patients of their condition by including sentiments of recovering from their illnesses.
Thursday, Nov. 14 Create for Kids is working with Surfrider, another club at Aliso, to make ocean or beach-themed cards, due in room 410 the following Friday. Creating two thoughtful and appropriately themed cards earns students one service hour.
The second part of the collaboration with Surfrider is a beach clean-up on Nov. 23 where Create for Kids members are invited to join with the other club to protect the ocean.
There was also a different volunteer event last month offered by Create for Kids by teaming up with LightZ of Hope to package lights to be sent to pediatric patients to brighten their experience. Club President Adnaik first heard about this organization when she volunteered with them for Lion’s Heart previously.
Club Advisor Allison Terhardt, a history teacher at ANHS, says she agreed to advise the club because she “can tell this was something [the founding members] were really excited about and they see this as a way to help out…and give back to the community.”
Some of the main goals for the future of the club are to provide more volunteer opportunities, expand the club by increasing the number of members and continue to work with other clubs and organizations.
Another benefit to joining Create for Kids aside from simply wanting to help the community and receiving service hours for the effort is the atmosphere within the club.
Ms. Terhardt says a main reason to join is the “fun environment; you get to hang out with friends, you get to do something together and it’s a real sense of community within the club.”
Create for Kids allows students to give back to children in their community who need love and support while earning service hours for themselves with other caring people.
Adnaik’s final message to Aliso students: “Everyone should join because it’s an amazing opportunity to volunteer through art and make a difference by sending cards for pediatric patients and you get to meet new people.”
