NPHS clubs aid the community
Amongst the clubs found within Newbury Park High School, three that shine under the spotlight through their actions in helping the community are Periods with Pride, Key Club, and Doctors of the World. From supply drives, to care packages, to writing letters to the elderly, each club strives to provide students opportunities to make a difference not only within their community, but even nationally.
The wrinkle of a pad used to be a scary sound to Aarya Bhat, senior, who was taught to rarely mention being on her period. Bhat found that society looks upon menstruation in such a negative light that most people are scared to speak of the topic, which led her to take the first initiative towards change by co-founding Periods with Pride at NPHS. “We wanted to create an inclusive environment where we can have this discussion, raise awareness about the topic and talk about menstrual equity, without having societal judgment,” Bhat said.
Periods with Pride not only strives to break the stigma placed around periods, but initiates multiple menstrual product drives throughout the year. “Not everyone has the luxury to purchase period products, there are a lot of homeless individuals who have to come up with unsafe methods when on their period, so being able to donate to shelters is important so everyone can have access to menstrual products,” Bhat said.
Providing students with opportunities to partake in service projects, build character and make friends is a goal Key Club prides itself to have accomplished. Grace Younes, senior, fell in love with the mission behind Key Club during her middle school years and her passion grew even more once she became president. “We help the community a ton just based on the wide range of projects that we do. There are two big service projects we do per year, and then around three to four smaller activities,” Younes said. “We have led a book drive and we partake in an app called Charity Miles where students can run, walk, or bike to log their miles and turn it into money for a certain charity.”
From one news screen to another, Niah Goudar, senior, saw the many crises throughout the world, and created Doctors of the World to aid these crises. “We’ve done a big collection drive where we partnered up with another non-profit called the Central Care, in which we gathered thousands of supplies such as socks, deodorants, shampoos, and we made these care packages for the homeless people and we delivered them,” Goudar said. “We delivered about 30 to 50 packages which the homeless people directly got and it was just amazing to see how the effort of a club at school can benefit so many people.”Being able to bring smiles to so many faces has truly made all the hard work worth it for those within Doctors of the World. “We get to see the benefit our drives can make in people’s lives rather than just raising money and donating it, we really see the impact that our work has,” Goudar said.
As the presidents leave for college, a difficult goodbye to overcome has been parting with their club. “I hope the future board will carry on the message we’ve promoted these last two years and overall just spreading awareness to the topic and using periods as a way to bring people up,” Bhat said. “I hope the future board will bring in more people and create a safe space for everybody while also educating people on the topic of menstruation and making periods more normalized in our society.”
