With the college application season now in full swing, many students at Arcadia High School (AHS) are searching for volunteer opportunities in order to demonstrate their dedication to the Arcadia community. This year, senior Shirlyn Huang has started an exciting volunteer program known as Your Narrative, with the help of the AHS librarian, Ms. Shannon Will, and the Wellness Counselor, Dr. Deja Anderson, to help students turn their passions into something that gives back to the community.

As Huang described it, Your Narrative is a program “where students can donate their passions for creative endeavors such as [making] plushies, creating handmade bracelets, writing letters, etc. for the elderly and hospital patients” to receive service hours.

Expanding upon Huang’s description, Dr. Anderson comments that Your Narrative was started because “students here are always looking for a way to take care of their wellness, but also looking for a way to do something to kind of give back to the community. So we end up looking at donating materials to the hospital.”

Dr. Anderson believes Your Narrative benefits not only senior patients, but also the students themselves. She noted that “the students who volunteer for this program, not only are they doing something great for folks in our community and spreading wellness, but they also receive [volunteer] hours for doing the work as well. So it’s kind of like a win-win for everybody.”

Despite the recent start of the project, Your Narrative has already seen immense support from many student organizations. The big goal for Huang this year is to donate “at least 100 [items] by the end of the year… but now that I’ve reached out to so many clubs, I know [clubs such as] Interact Club are interested, and they would have around 60 members participating at the donation date. Which is crazy to me!”

Aside from the aforementioned Interact Club, Huang explained that the “Mental Health Club is going to be partnering with us on the next donation date. And I’ve also reached out to [National Honor Society], [Seniors of Merit at Work]… I talked about it in Speech and Debate, in [Peer Tutoring Outreach], and in Peer Tutoring. I’m trying to reach out to many organizations and combine them under one cause.”

Before the first donation date on Oct. 27, Your Narrative accepted drop-offs at the Wellness Center and the AHS library. The collected items were sent to Keck Hospital of the University of Southern California and the Arcadia Senior Services.

The first donation turned out to be much more successful than either Huang or Dr. Anderson had expected. Dr. Anderson recalls that the project “must have received at least 60 to 70 cards to donate between the two places, and Shirlyn had about a half dozen crocheted items that people made.”

Building from this success, Dr. Anderson is eager to expand this project further. She explains that “I was impressed with what we had already collected. I think my goal would be just to grow this more throughout our school. So letting more and more students know, hey, we have this opportunity. If you would like to donate a letter, word of encouragement, a drawing, a crochet piece, ceramic, whatever it is, and just get more and more of our student community involved. So my goal is to just make awareness of this organization.”

Regarding the impact and future of the project, Huang hoped to transform Your Narrative into “a pen pal situation… I hope that [the elderly patients] just gain a lot more positivity. I know that in my life, I’m going through something that’s not the best, and I hope that for mental health’s sake, everyone can just be happy.”

Dr. Anderson believes it’s important to have more students involved in the project. She notes that “If we could get more and more students to be able to be a part of this simple project, we could have just a greater impact on our community and just let our community know how much we love the people at the hospital, how much we love our seniors of Arcadia. And then we could possibly branch out and find other organizations who are also interested in participating in our wellness donation.”

While the date for the next round of donations is not determined yet, Dr. Anderson commented that Your Narrative will “do something before winter break is over, so keep an eye out either for email or for the student bulletin! If we could hit 100 plus [donations], that would be fantastic. Especially if we’re aiming to spread joy and cheer for the holidays.”

No doubt, with more attention drawn towards Your Narrative, the project will fulfill its goals of promoting mental wellness for both the AHS and the Arcadia community, building relationships between students and the elderly, and encouraging more students to continue their extracurricular hobbies and use their creativity to leave behind a positive impact.

Photo by Richard Dai