Several Scripps Ranch High School seniors were able to continue a school tradition this fall in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic causing their campus to be closed and off-limits.
Normally, SRHS seniors are allowed to bid on parking spaces at their school as a fundraiser at the beginning of each school year. Then they are allowed to personalize their spaces with colorful artwork. This year, the seniors were allowed to create art on parking spaces at the Scripps Miramar Ranch Library instead of their high school lot.
Photos by Justin Fine. Visit justinfine.com.
Many Scripps Ranch High School (SRHS) students will continue a nine-year-long tradition of aiding San Diego's homeless this holiday season. With the help of the SRHS Homeless Outreach Club, students will be donating new clothing and other necessities through a network of collection boxes this holiday season.
Blake Scurry, who is the club's president and a SRHS student, said that they are currently donating more than 800 pairs of socks to various homeless shelters.
"We are planning to donate 100 hygiene kits and hand-written messages of hope to a San Diego homeless shelter," Scurry said.
With the help of the club adviser Ron Tsui, the Outreach Club is a student-run volunteer organization that raises awareness about the homelessness problem in San Diego. It was started in late 2011 by former SRHS students Nicolas Stanitsas and Daniel Miller. Stanitsas started a sock drive for the homeless in the fall of 2011. He later met Miller, who shared the same vision as his. So, they tag-teamed to promote an event called "Christmas Socks for the Homeless" that year in which they collected more than 800 pairs of athletic socks – just like the current project.
Although the COVID-19 pandemic had set back some of the Outreach Club's events, it did not prevent people from donating for the next event.
"Luckily, we have already received donations for hygiene kits from the members of our community," Scurry
said. "Scripps Ranch has always been known for its kindness and generosity."
In April 2020, the U.S. Census reported that there were nearly 4,900 people who were homeless in the City of San Diego, a drop of 4 percent from last year, according to SanDiego.gov. Many are being temporarily sheltered inside the San Diego Convention Center.
While city officials are working on a long-term plan to address homelessness, volunteer programs like the SRHS Homeless Outreach Club offer some comfort and short-term solutions.
"Just like the founders' goal of raising awareness of homelessness, we are hoping to provide aid to those in need and give a spark of hope in their lives," Scurry said.
All Scripps Ranch High students are welcome to join. Email the Outreach Club: srhshomelessoutreach@gmail.com.
H2N, which stands for Homework Help Network, helps to reduce academic inequality that was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. It offers free group and one-on-one tutoring once a week with Scripps Ranch High School (SRHS) honor students, who are experienced in working with younger students.
Although many of Marshall's students have received help to attend online classes, such as getting Internet access and laptops, many are still falling behind. Some families cannot afford tutoring services, especially during the pandemic.
"Many parents also work from home and don't have enough time to help them with their homework," said Anjali Koganti, 17, who is a co-founder of H2N and graduated from SRHS in spring 2020. "We fill in the gap to help these students and families."
Koganti got the idea from TutorFly, which is another online tutoring service, but H2N is designed to work only with students at Marshall. She knew she could not do this alone. Koganti asked her friend Sumana Srinivas, who is a senior at SRHS and had taken a computer coding course last summer, for help with starting H2N. Both share the roles of creating and managing the website with Srinivas handling most of the student sign-ups.
With the help of Marshall's vice-principals Kaitlin Moffatt and Stephen Olds, Koganti and Srinivas set up H2N as a connection between the students at Marshall and SRHS.
"Vice-principals Moffatt and Olds helped us to get the resources together for H2N," Koganti said. "They help us out with logistics and improvements for the website based on their knowledge of the students and parents."
The vice-principals also help spread the word about H2N to the Marshall students' families, and they meet with Koganti and Srinivas once or twice a week to see how the program is doing.
Marshall's students choose a topic, reserve a time with a group or private session with a tutor and submit a specific question about their homework once a week. Meanwhile, SRHS students who would like to be a tutor can sign up on the website.
"Right now, we have about 20 Marshall Middle School students signed up for H2N, and we are hoping more will sign up," Koganti said.
For now, Marshall is the only middle school in San Diego County that is using this tutoring model, which functions more like a high school club than a business. Koganti and Srinivas hope that other schools would adopt something similar to help struggling students and families.
"We see ourselves reaching out to other middle and high schools in Southern California to incorporate a H2N club," Srinivas said. "We want this organization to help not just the Scripps Ranch community, but other surrounding communities as well."
Contact H2N at tutoring.h2n@gmail.com or visit h2ntutoring.com.
Ellen Browning Scripps Elementary School plans to hold a Drive-Thru Fall Festival at the school’s faculty parking lot Friday, Oct. 30.
The event will feature a pumpkin carving contest, a car decorating contest and carnival games. All games and contest will be played through car windows. Attendees must stay in their vehicle at the event.
Face coverings and social distancing are required during the event.
For more information, visit https://www.ebs-afp.com/fallfamilyfestival.
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