Passion projects are more than just hobbies: they are personal pursuits that reflect a person’s creativity and interests. Whether it be a podcast or a non-profit organization, these self-driven projects offer a unique space to combine purpose and passion.
Sophomore Ava Lily Sunga’s passion project, “Rekindle Rewind,” is focused on sharing stories from older generations. Sunga and her friends started a podcast to interview the elderly about their experiences in life, such as their upbringing and what life was like during different times.
“We realized that we don’t know a lot about our grandparents and their upbringing,” Sunga said. “So we wanted to find that out and encourage others to talk to their grandparents more, too. I feel like by doing this, I [could] personally connect more with my grandparents.”
Furthermore, junior Olivia Skeete is currently developing a schedule builder for Portola High School. Using AI and React, a JavaScript library used for building user interfaces, she has created a visual model of a student’s schedule. She has also trained a custom GPT, a language model hosted on ChatGPT, on data she web-scraped from Portola High’s website to personalize and recommend the most suitable courses for a student.
“When I was planning my courses for junior year, it was stressful because I felt like this was the most important year,” Skeete said. “There’s so many courses available. I was scared that I’d pick something and then I would hear about this other opportunity that I missed. I want to make sure that doesn’t happen to anyone.”
Freshman Kaelyn Han and her friends are dedicated to supporting underprivileged communities by providing clean water. Together, they have partnered up with Wells of Life, a non-profit organization whose mission is to help run fundraisers and events to provide towns in Uganda with clean water by installing wells.
“My friends and I believe that having access to basic needs of life like clean water shouldn’t get in the way of someone’s health and life,” Han said. “It’s surprising how limited our sources can be, and at the same time how privileged we are to forget what we have.”
For the next year, Han’s goal is to engage the project with the school’s community. She plans to turn the project into an engaging club at school and encourage many students to join their cause. However, during the development of the project, Han has learned the importance of taking action and teamwork.
“I’ve come to understand how important taking action is,” Han said. “Professionally, I feel like I’ve become better at being more understanding, whether that’s hearing what my friends have to say, what other people have to comment about, and overall becoming more open-minded about ideas, feedback and suggestions. They really do make a huge difference!”
