The WW-P Education Foundation Youth Committee has been focused on raising awareness of the goals of the foundation and raising funds for the organization. The foundation, founded in 1995, is a private nonprofit charitable organization that funds innovative programs for students in the district. Visit www.wwpeducationfoundation.org for more information.
For the past two years, the signature fundraising event has been the talent show, “WW-P’s Got Talent.” The committee has raised a total of $31,000, with more than $20,000 this year. The money will directly impact WW-P students through literacy, arts, science, technology, and math grants to teachers and staff members.
The project, led by student co-presidents Ayza Akhtar and Abhinav Bheemidi, has enhanced the funding for innovative programs, such as the portable planetarium Star Lab, technology pilot projects, and reading and math programs.
“One of the main goals of the talent show is to raise money, but we also want to bring the community together,” says Akhtar, a June graduate of High School South. “We rarely get to see students from all the different schools, so it was an opportunity for all of us to be involved in having all these different age groups together on one stage.”
“In WW-P, we have a diverse population, and we wanted this diversity to be seen throughout our show,” says Bheemidi, a rising senior at South. “We coordinated with hundreds of participants and parents and we were able to pull together students from all over the district from every school and showcase these exceptional talents.”
Much of the work to put together WW-P’s Got Talent is done by the members of the Youth Committee. From January to April, the students created subcommittees to focus on various aspects of the show, including fundraising, communications, advertising, programming, and food. The students had monthly meetings to discuss progress. Natalie Wong and Prachi Mahableshwarkar served as secretaries.
“Youth Committee members were taught the importance of communication and self-motivation, as they were expected to independently complete the tasks necessary to reach fundraising goals and make their part of the evening a success,” says Akhtar. “It is important to note some of the work from my peers.”
Angela Li, Nidhi Khanna, and Malika Keshu were instrumental in fundraising efforts; Sarah Wu, Sabrina Jiang, and Melodi Harfouche headed the publicity committee; Nikhil Shah was responsible for the program booklet; Robert Grueneberg and Abhinav Bheemidi were in charge of the sound; Daniel Grueneberg and Shreya Mandloi served as stage managers; Nishant Modi was responsible for the lighting; and Simi Verma coordinated parts of the show.
Also, Anesha Nadella helped bring talent from Grover Middle School; Altan Aldemir and Alpay Aldemir managed the crowd; Tanvi Ramchandran and Ishar Keshu worked with the Arts Council to create and curate an art exhibit; Jessica Oertel and Tiffany Rodriguez were instrumental in organizing a buffet dinner that represented the diverse cuisine of the WW-P community and served more than 600 people on the night of the event.
“All of the students were just wonderful,” says Edward Rosenzweig, president of the WW-P Education Foundation. “Without the hard work of the Education Foundation Youth Committee, these students would not have created such a successful show.”
