Article written by Agnes Pash and Valayah Morris, 10th grade students and members of East Village Middle College High School’s Interact Club
Joining Interact, a junior version of Rotary, during our freshman year was daunting at first. We walked into a room of unfamiliar faces, but the immediate warmth of the community erased the hesitation we felt. It was unbelievably easy to feel welcome among people who cared about the topics we discussed and who were committed to our goals.
Every year, our club works on a new community service project to explore different forms of civic engagement. This year, we worked with PATH, an organization working to end homelessness with over 70 locations assisting with housing and food insecurities. As students, the scale of homelessness and PATH’s mission felt overwhelming. How can our small club make an impact on such a significant issue?
We decided to take it one step at a time. Through collaborative group sessions after school, we began a semester-long fundraiser for PATH, making jewelry by hand and selling it to the public. What seemed like an impossible mission became a showcase of the real-world impact that can come from our dedicated work. Through our perseverance, we raised $600 for PATH. The experience was eye-opening, being such a small group of students working with a large organization.
This success encouraged us to take this involvement further. So after one of our meetings, we walked over to the PATHCooks office to volunteer. There, students assisted in preparing meals to serve that night, preparing food for the following days, cleaning the kitchen and eating area, and interacting with people from various different backgrounds. During this experience, it truly felt like we were spreading kindness and creating a meaningful impact on others. Our club was already planning our return, filled with excitement and gratitude after seeing how much our efforts mattered.
Simply knowing that we were helping people experiencing hardship and ensuring they had a meal the same way we do every day made the experience especially profound. It felt like our efforts and kindness could brighten someone’s day, even in a small way. While serving food, you could see and feel the warmth of the smiles on both our club members’ faces and the faces of those we were helping. It showed everyone that something as simple as a student offering food with kindness and a smile made a difference. This experience reminded us how fortunate we are and allowed us to connect with people in our community we probably wouldn’t have met before. Not only did this give us a sense of gratitude, but it also helped everyone in our club develop empathy and compassion for those in our community.
By being part of Interact, we were able to make a difference in our community through projects like selling jewelry to raise money and volunteering with PATHCooks. These experiences allowed us to support an organization like PATH and develop our skills of leadership, empathy, and compassion. Being able to directly help members of our community showed us how powerful even small acts of service can be, and it inspired many of us to continue giving back.
About the Authors:
Agnes Pash and Valayah Morris are 10th grade students at East Village Middle College High School and active members of the Interact Club. They wrote this reflection to share what they learned from supporting PATH San Diego through fundraising efforts and hands-on service at PATH Cooks.