Vini Lanka, a rising junior at High School South and a senior master sergeant with Civil Air Patrol, recently spent a week at the New Jersey Wing basic encampment. She joined Twin Pine Composite Squadron in 2003 because a lot of her friends were joining. After a one-week encampment at Fort Dix, she was hooked. “I lived the military life and saw opportunities to work in whatever field I wanted and to serve my country,” she says. With the Civil Air Patrol, she is involved as a mission rescue operator, keeping track and contact of airplanes with the area.
The encampment day includes waking up at 4:30 a.m., doing physical training, obstacle courses, and flight time. “When you first arrive at encampment you wonder how you will survive without the electronics you rely on from day to day at home,” says Vini. “But then you look around you and see that there are more important things at encampment that matter even more than the cell phone, alarm clock, or Ipod you left at home. You begin to trust and look after the people you work with, eat with, and live with, you become a team and more importantly, a family.”
Lanka wants to be a pediatrician and is beginning to introduce herself to the world of medicine. She’s taken child growth and development courses and worked as a teacher in the WWP’s pre-school program.
Her mother, Sharadha Lanka, works in accounting and legal with ZNA Infotech. Her father, Ramachandra Lanka, is a trouble shooter with Shering Plough. Vini, born in India, came to Plainsboro in 1994. She is an only child.
“My parents are OK with whatever dreams I make and supportive with whatever I do,” she says. “If something is important to me I make sure that I achieve my goals.”
She recently returned from the New Jersey Youth Ambassador Initiative’s conference at the United Nations in New York.
An outcome of the conference is to aid SOFKIN (Support Organization for Kids in Need), a group that funds a chain of orphanages in India. FAF (Friendship Ambassadors Foundation) encourages American artists to showcase their talents abroad.
Lanka raised the possibility of a Civil Air Patrol talent show to benefit SOFKIN. She also involved herself with the Nigerian Youth Delegates and plans to talk to Schering Plough about donating medical supplies to refuge camps in Nigeria. With the Right to Play Foundation, she will encourage area athletic groups to collect funds and supplies in their particular sports for underprivileged kids.
