Since the beginning of this school year, the Travel and Tourism Academy has been fundraising for the homeless, Travel and Tourism Academy Academy Coordinator Tricia Brownstein said in a Zoom interview.
Students got the idea to raise money for the homeless after Brownstein shared statistics with them on the number of homeless families in Milpitas, senior Jordyn Davilla, a member of the academy leadership team, said in a Zoom interview. When Ms. Brownstein provided students with the opportunity to work on a community service project, they were excited to be a part of it, Davilla added.
“In addition, we know that during COVID-19, … homelessness is growing, and with the rising economy, houses are getting more expensive,” senior Nolan Calara, a member of the academy leadership team, said in a Zoom interview. “We realize the homeless don’t have a lot of things, and it’s unfortunate they don’t have enough money to buy the resources they need. We came to the cause of homelessness because we wanted to make a difference within our community.”
The Travel and Tourism Academy leadership team, consisting of juniors and seniors, is making the main decisions on the project as well as doing most of the work since it is an open project and allows students to get community service hours, Brownstein said. However, there are a handful of students who are not in leadership that are directly helping with the project, and all of the forty-nine seniors are involved in some way with the fundraising, Brownstein added.
“The seniors are going through the nationwide program Lead4Change where advisors work with students through a curriculum to conduct a community service project,” Brownstein said. “We started with this curriculum, and I let the kids choose and decide what project we were going to do together.”
The focus of the academy’s fundraiser is to create care packages containing COVID essentials, Brownstein said. The students are aware that the school district has a large homeless population with approximately 350 to 400 homeless students, and the number fluctuates all the time, Brownstein said. The Travel and Tourism Academy is working with Nicole Steward, a social worker, who is in charge of distributing the care packages because it would be a confidentiality issue to tell the students which kids are homeless, she added.
“To spread the word, we reached out to a lot of the local organizations like Rotary Club and Kiwanis Club. Students are writing letters to all the council members, the school board members, local businesses, and dentists because we want toothbrushes and toothpaste [for the care packages],” Brownstein said. “We met with the Rotary Club, and they said they’ll donate masks.”
The Travel and Tourism Academy also reached out to various individuals and organizations, such as Sweet Snacks, who pledged to donate 75% of their proceeds towards the fundraiser, and the Milpitas Teachers Association (MTA), who have donated $2,500, Calara said. In addition, some students met with the Mayor Rich Tran, who helped promote the fundraiser on his social media pages, he added.
Beyond local organizations, the academy reached out to larger companies to obtain more supplies for the care packages. “I work at Trader Joe’s and so we could go ahead and get simple donations from them such as hand sanitizer and toilet paper, which has really helped us,” senior Alexia Santiago, a member of the leadership team, said in a Zoom interview.
To make the care packages, the leadership team plans to meet after they have received enough money and all the materials, Santiago said. In the care packages, there will be COVID essentials such as hand sanitizers, masks, toothbrushes, toothpaste, feminine products for girls who are of age, socks, blankets, and a reusable bag they can use, Santiago added.
“On our GoFundMe page, we’re looking for $15,000, and the idea is that we’d create 200 care packages, with each package containing a $50 gift card to a grocery store, which adds up to $10,000. The money we need to put together the COVID essential packages is about $500,” Brownstein said. “We have $2,500 from the Milpitas Teachers Association and then we have $1,100 in our GoFundMe, so we’re at $3,600 total,” Brownstein added.
The leadership team is trying to finish building the care packages for the holidays, but as of right now, the academy is unsure of when packages are going to be sent out, Brownstein said. If COVID improves, the Travel and Tourism Academy hopes to get together to build the care packages, but with the Bay Area entering the purple tier, they don’t feel comfortable working in person, Brownstein said. If they can’t all meet together, Brownstein might do the care packages herself or put the packages on hold until it is safe for everyone to work on them together, Brownstein said.
COVID-19 has also raised other problems for the Academy. “One of the problems that we’ve been facing is contacting more businesses,” Calara said. “We’ve tried to contact them by email, but it would be so much more convenient if we were to meet them in person, since they would have time to ask us questions and we could give them more information. We’re trying our best by using online resources such as social media and others,” Calara added.
Despite the difficulties of outreach, Academy students have enjoyed fundraising. The students have enjoyed getting to meet more community leaders and in the process, learn more about Milpitas, Calara said. For example, in Rotary Club, members of the leadership team spoke with the Superintendent Cheryl Jordan and others and felt like everyone in the meeting was very willing to help their cause, Calara said. Meeting with individuals who genuinely care about preventing homelessness has shown the students how kind the Milpitas community is, Calara added.