By Pepper King and Kinda Hamami
Seniors (from left) Lexie Fox, Grace-May Hansen, and Gabriella Schaumleffel advertise Recycled Closet Club enrollment.
For a lot of students at San Marin, clubs serve as extracurriculars to boost college applications, or as a fun way to spend lunches a few times a month. However, for some motivated students, clubs give them the opportunity to inspire beneficial change in the community.
The Recycled Closet Club, led by co-presidents, seniors Grace-May Hansen, Gabriella Schaumleffel, and Lexie Fox, has held several clothing swaps this year. They wanted to continue to bring the school together, by both teaching the benefits of second-hand clothing, and hosting fun school events. This club has been working to help the San Marin community through introducing students to the concept of thrifting and second hand clothing.
“We all love to thrift our clothes and are passionate about reducing fashion waste,” Fox said. “If they [other students] enjoy the swap, they may be inspired to purchase more of their clothes second-hand, or donate their clothes in the future.”
By participating, students can help reduce the amount of clothing waste, which has a negative impact on the environment. The club held their second swap of the school year on Jan. 26, where lots of old clothes found new homes.
“Thrift swapping is great for reducing clothing waste and making it easy to get second-hand clothes,” Fox said.
OD Free San Marin, a club introduced this year by junior Paige Brumley, already has an extensive list of goals and ideas for how to spread their message. Their main partner, OD Free, has provided resources across the community and set up booths at farmers markets. Brumley is hoping to extend this reach to the young members of the San Marin community, who may be less aware of the issue.
“Our goals are to prevent substance misuse and overdose deaths with strategies like naloxone (Narcan) training and distribution, drug disposal efforts, and patterning with harm reduction organizations,” Brumley said. “We want to educate the community about opioid use and misuse with outreaches to school, starting in San Marin with my club.”
OD Free San Marin, a branch of OD Free Marin, thrives with its main partners, OD Free and Songs for Charlie, where they plan to educate the community about drug misuse, as well as Narcan training, and patterning with harm reduction organizations.
“This issue is all over the news and is killing more people everyday. This club and organization will be the start of helping reduce a nationwide epidemic,” Brumley said.
Another program that was introduced this year is junior Teju Kancharla’s campaign for the nonprofit Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS). Kancharla is working with her sister, senior Manvitha Kancharla, and senior Grace-May Hansen, juniors Parinaz Sotoudeh, Rayhan Syed, and Paige Brumley to recognize cancer patients and the injustices they face in the health community.
“We’re hoping to benefit the community around us by helping to support the non profit by raising money for them and spreading awareness about the unfairness of the healthcare system and how it affects patients and their families,” T. Kancharla said.
T. Kancharla and her team’s goal is to raise $50,000 through sponsors or donations. Th ey have a GoFundMe set up for their program, and hope for many donations made by the San Marin community.
“Through our campaign we have a team who helps us spread awareness and raise money since our fundraiser goal is kind of huge at $50,000, and more students could get involved by really just sharing it around and donating,” T. Kancharla said.
These groups have been hard at work inspiring change in Marin’s community. From trying to increase awareness about the environment, to providing aid to cancer patients, to educating people about the impacts of drugs, these students hope to see a positive impact from their actions.
“It provides a way to get engaged with the community by being part of a club that is actively trying to make a change, not just for the school, but also for Marin County.”
– Paige Brumley
Junior
“I don’t think we have had a major impact on the community so far, as my club has just started this year,” Brumley said. “However, it provides a way to get engaged with the community by being a part of a club that is actively trying to make a change, not just for the school, but also for Marin County.”
