United by their unique interests, passionate students join together in clubs to build valuable experience. They provide a diverse range of opportunities to meet like-minded individuals. Portola High welcomes over 113 new clubs this school year, according to ASB Treasurer and senior Skyller Liu. Among these clubs are the Sending Sunshine, Reform-All and Craft Club.
Sending Sunshine Club
The Sending Sunshine club is a chapter of the Sending Sunshine non-profit charity that aims to decrease social isolation among people living in senior citizen homes. Members of the club make cards with inspirational messages to help seniors gain a sense of support and feel less alone, according to President and junior Katy Hong.
“Ever since I was younger, my mom would always take me to trips to senior citizen centers, and she would just tell me stories about senior citizens who just live in isolation because their families and their children just leave them in the senior citizen homes because they’re busy or just live in another state,” Hong said.
The conditions Hong witnessed in senior citizen homes fueled her desire for change in the way elderly people are treated and inspired her creation of the Sending Sunshine club, according to Hong. She feels that Sending Sunshine’s support for seniors is increasingly needed as the isolation many seniors face negatively affects their health.
Craft Club
Unleashing her inner artist, President and junior Samantha Gu established the Craft Club to invite members to share their crafting abilities and learn new skills from each other. Members will make slime, crochet, needle punch and origami during future club meetings, according to Gu.
As the Craft Club grows in size, Gu plans to sell the club’s crafting products and donate the proceeds to causes she cares about, according to Gu.
“My idea is to donate that money to a program that helps people who just immigrated to the United States because I myself also just immigrated here,” Gu said. “So I think people like that need support, and I want to provide that.”
Reform-All Club
Expressing their creativity, co-Presidents and sophomores Kayleen Yoo and Tara Witsoe created the Reform-All club, where students repurpose donated clothing to raise money for local community organizations like the Orange County Food Bank.
“What inspired us was basically that we were both interested in fashion design, and we wanted to save resources by using the old clothes and reforming them, and also as well as using the money to donate to the community around us,” Yoo said.
Both Yoo and Witsoe grew up with strong interests in fashion and decided to turn their pastime into a club, hoping members can learn more about fashion design and how to reform their old clothes into new styles.
“If I could say in one sentence I’d probably just say people expressing their interests and creating new things with their interests and then giving back to the community” Witsoe said.
Yoo and Witsoe see reforming clothes as a fun hobby and plan to expand the Reform-All club into a greater non-profit organization in Orange County.
