studentcorps

Written by: Steven Wang

This past Saturday, the Fremont chapter of NorCal Student Corps went out for both a park cleanup and a check delivery at Coyote Creek, hosted by KCCB (Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful). Bringing a 500 dollar check with them, which would, in the words of KCCB, “make a world of difference” for the organization, our volunteers all have taken time out of their day to contribute to the community.

Presentation of the check occurred in front of a mural with an interesting backstory. The wall on which it was painted belonged to an elementary school and had been graffitied repeatedly, so the city and the school got together and took input from various sources on what should be done. A mural was decided to be most effective. The content of the mural was largely decided by students of the school, and it makes a strong statement regarding environmental conservation and restoration – fitting for the day’s theme.

Written by: Steven Wang (Fremont Chapter President)

On April 10th, 2021, over fifteen Student Corps members and their parents from four different NorCal chapters descended upon Coyote Creek in a coordinated, socially-distanced effort to clean up sections of the creek and their surroundings. Through the local nonprofit Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful, the team of over twenty volunteers filled twenty-six 55-gallon trash bags, retrieving the most “large items” among the month’s participants.

On behalf of all of the participants that came this weekend, I can proudly say that this experience and event was the most satisfying I, the author, and the others have had in a long time. Minimizing the human footprint has become one of the foremost issues facing society today, and I seek everyday to play even the smallest role in the fight against environmental problems such as climate change. The physical effort of scouring an area for trash, repeatedly hauling heavy trash bags to the curbside, and bringing bulky items up from the creek brought smiles among all of the Student Corps volunteers; the difference we were able to make upon nature and its elements left positive and lasting impressions.

Thank you to all of the NorCal students that took the time to come out this weekend and continue volunteering through these difficult and harsh times. I applaud and encourage everyone to continue doing great work for the community. Shown below is a video collage of the pictures we took this weekend.

Today, we are excited to highlight stories from three members of our Fessenden Chapter, which has done great work this year. Keep up the wonderful efforts, Daniel, Teddy, and Quinten!

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Daniel Tang | President of Weston Fessenden Chapter

For me, volunteer service is not only a public benefit activity that needs to be persevered, but also an additional way for me to serve others, give back to the society, and realize the dream of delivering love.
My teaching method is not only popular among students, but also fully recognized by parents. I love seeing smiling faces of students finding the answer after receiving the help of enthusiastic student teachers. This is a symbol of love and care in the community! I am determined to keep going and hopes to influence more friends to join the volunteer team, to dedicate ourselves to passing on love!

My story inspired others and with the support of them, we started to raise money for child burn survivors. An article about my volunteer work was read 7,780 times and received over 1,200 comments, including from my students, my parents, and my friends and family. They mobilized and promoted Student Corps volunteer activities and raised a total of $1,627 to help burned children in the community.

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Teddy Zhang | Vice President of Weston Fessenden Chapter

For me, tutoring is an amazing experience as you get to teach other people things they don’t know. My favorite subject is history because it’s a really deep subject from all of the information you learn in history. I like to think of history as a mirror that you use to observe to learn to not make the same mistakes over again. Besides tutoring history I also 3D print face shields for the frontline workers.
My 3D mask charity sale raised $100 which I donated to the help child burn survivors in the community.

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Quinten Jin

My name is Zikun Jin and I also go by Quinten. I am currently a 9th-grade student at The Fessenden School.

There is a Chinese proverb, “Gifts of roses, hands there are lingering fragrance.” When I was young, my mother taught me to help others as much as possible within my abilities. I am thrilled to join the Fessenden Chapter, a lovely and united team. Every time I participate in activities, I will have many different feelings and gains.

I have been doing paper-cutting with Beijing paper-cutting artists since I was six years old. I held a personal paper-cutting art exhibition at The Fessenden School in May 2018 and a personal paper-cutting art exhibition at the Newton Free Library in August 2019. In September 2019, two of my artworks were selected for the 100Market Gallery Art Festival in NH! When I joined the Fessenden Chapter team, I planned to give full play to my expertise, so I did a few open paper-cutting classes in Newton Free Library and Belmont Library, which won many people and residents’ praise and increased popularity!

At the beginning of 2020, during the Chinese New Year, I was invited by the Belmont Chinese Association to participate in the lunar new year event. On the day of the event, I performed live paper-cutting and raised funds. My Fessenden Chapter teammates and I entered the venue in advance to set up our booth. In order to attract more people, we hung two paper-cuts of traditional Chinese mascots above the booth and designed several activity plans: live talent show, live paper-cutting Teaching, and paper-cutting crafts production, etc. At the same time, there is a donation box set up on the spot. Each person is responsible for different tasks. Some are responsible for paper-cutting, some are responsible for making paper-cutting crafts, and some wearing ancient Chinese costumes are responsible for publicity… Fully, our booth was full of people and became the busiest place in the audience. A kid bought paper-cut crafts twice by himself and brought a few friends to buy together. In the end, we raised $172 for charity. Everyone is extremely happy and excited. Several of my works were also presented as gifts to Adam Dash, Vice Chairman of Select Board in Baytown, Roy Epstein, Member of Select Board, Senator William N. Brownsberger of Massachusetts, and Congressman David M. Rogers for Fessenden Chapter won praise.

Volunteering is to help others and to be happy about yourself being a contributive person. Let us learn happily, grow, enrich one’s self, and improve in every activity. I gain a lot of knowledge off-campus. We strongly invite you to join our team!

On August 19th, 2020, officers and members from Student Corps’ NorCal chapters came to Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Bay Area’s Milpitas office to present the annual 500 dollar donation as part of the partnership between Student Corps and Big Brother Big Sisters of the Bay Area. These 500 dollars, funded mainly by Jupiter Peng’s (president of Santa Clara Chapter) computer programming tutoring class and our long-term bottle recycling event across all chapters, will be used for BBBSBA’s mentorship program.

Members met with Anthony Spivey, VP of program of BBBSBA, and exchanged ideas with him on setting up academic tutoring program for BBBSBA littles, as most of the BBBABS littles have, and continue to stay home for virtual learning. More and more high school students join SC’s online tutoring program each day during this COVID-19 pandemic. 

Thank you to all the members for another year of hardworking and serving the community. SC NorCal continues to grow even during these uncertain times!

Congratulations to the Weston Student Corps chapter for planning and completing so many events in support of the fight against COVID-19! We wanted to highlight some of their many accomplishments from this past few months in this post. Thank you to all members for your dedication and effort.

April 2020: T-shirt fundraiser in support of Wuhan

In February, members of Weston and surrounding communities all came together to sing a song to build hope for the fight against Covid-19 in Wuhan. There we sold T-shirts for everyone to wear and show solidarity. Not only were the T-shirts very cool, but the funds raised by selling those shirts would be donated to nonprofits to help fight the pandemic. These shirts would also be worn at the march to raise funds for our friends in Wuhan and show that the Chinese communities of Massachusetts care for those in Wuhan. Over 100 people showed up to sing and overall was a very fun experience while also being very important.

Members: Edward Wu, Vincent Lian, Sophia Peng

March 2020: Helping registration at Walk for Wuhan at Newton

Students participated in events to showcase positive and united effort in our community, to support fighting against COVID-19, and for fundraising for needed medical supplies.

April 2020: Drive and drop off masks to senior houses

Weston Student Corp collected 8900 face masks, packaged and delivered them to multiple hospitals, senior houses, fire department, including Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Common Cathedral Boston / for homeless shelter, Advinia Care Senior Housing，Wilmington, Simon C Fireman Community RANDOLPH, North Hill Senior Center Needham, Granite Place, Weston neighborhood, and Weston fire department. 

Among the institutions we donated masks, Advinia Care senior center Wilmington, during that time had 85 of 94 residents infected by Covid19, and 36 passed away, thus becoming MGH Recovery hospital.

Members: Vincent Lian, Edward Wu

April 2020: Mask drive for Personal Protective Equipment

In April 2020, a large shipment of masks were donated and shipped to Boston directly from factories in China directly, in order to save shipping costs, those masks had to be shipped without paper boxes. Weston Students corps members handpacked 100 boxes of masks per household (5,000 masks) and donated them to homeless shelters and senior homes across the country. The saved costs on packaging were donated back to a non-profit organization to buy more masks.

Members: Irene Wu, Vincent Lian, Richard Li, Anne Li, Edward Wu, Ethan Wu, Elaine Wang, Jojo Wu, Nancy Xie, Nelson Wang, Joey Wu, Jonathan Wu

April 2020: Massachusetts mask drive

Across Massachusetts, many people wanted to donate small packages of masks and PPEs to first responders, some of PPEs were bought before COVID-19 breakout, some of PPEs were sent from family members overseas. In order to reduce the overhead and streamline the donation process, a group of Weston student corps members went home by home to collect the donations so they can be packaged and donated together to different hospitals.

Members: Vincent Lian, Edward Wu, Irene Wu, Sophia Peng, Natalie Q Feng

April 2020: Activities with children of first responders

During the peak of the pandemic, we organized various activities and homework helps for the first responders’ children, so these children had resources and entertainment while their parents were working.

Members: Vincent Lian, Irene Wu, Joey Wu, Jonathan Wu

April 2020: Creating personalized lunches for first responders

Because the hospitals and first responders were overwhelmed during the pandemic, to show our appreciation, some non-profit organizations decorated lunches. Weston Student Corps partnered with one of the organizations, crafted personalized bags for 100 staff at Melrose Wakefield Healthcare, and 20 to Weston Police and Firefighters.

Members: Edward Wu, Ethan Wu, Irene Wu, Vincent Lian, Albert Wu, Anne Li, Jay Zhu, Elaine Peng, Maily Hia, Yifei Hu, Sophia Peng, Julia Chow, Alfred Chow, Natalie Q Feng, Jonathan Wu, Reina Wang, Nancy Xie

May 2020: Personal delivery of face masks in community

When the pandemic started to get worse, many community members didn’t have masks but still had to leave home sometimes. Weston Student corps connected with those community members and delivered face masks in their mailboxes.

Members: Irene Wu, Yifei Hu. Sophia Peng, Natalie Q Feng, Reina Wang, Elaine Wang, Vincent Lian, Joey Wu. Jonathan Wu, Elaine Wang, Yifei Hu, Sophia Peng. Vincent Lian

May 2020: Setting up mask distribution center

Some Weston Student Corps members also cooperated with the Weston Chinese community and set up a local mask distribution center stationed in Weston Fire Departments, and ensure it always contains enough masks for the community members.

Members: Joey Wu, Jonathan Wu, Elaine Wang, Sophia Peng

May 2020: Processing PPE China deliveries

Members prepared, repackaged and labeled PPEs shipped from China to make them ready for donation to hospitals and nursing homes.

Members: Joey Wu, Jonathan Wu. Elaine Wang. Jojo Wu, Nancy Xie. Nelson Wang, Sophia Peng

Thank you to Weston Student Corps chapter members for your hard efforts! Keep up the great work!