After devastating hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters hitting worldwide in the past few weeks, MVHS clubs and class officers decided to throw a Hurricane Relief Week to raise money for relief efforts. Each day of the week featured a different fundraiser, and on Sept. 28, la Sociedad Honoraria Hispana, or Spanish Honor Society, participated in a joint fundraiser. SHH, together with National Honor Society and the Indian American Student Association, sold samosas and horchata, raising money which will be donated to the Red Cross.

“We were thinking about how we could address the issues because we saw that it was really affecting communities around the country,” ASB vice president senior Santosh Sivakumar said. “We knew that some clubs had already started efforts to do those and we wanted to consolidate it all into one week.”

After coordinating with Leadership, National Honor Society invited SHH to join the fundraiser too. SHH welcomed the opportunity to work with other service clubs. Senior Pranav Varanasi, public relations officer for SHH, said there was no competition between the different clubs, and they all just tried to help out.

“It’s a community effort so we’re just all working together,” Varanasi said.

After joining the fundraiser, the club decided to bring some Hispanic culture to the event, and sold horchata, a cold drink often made with a base of milk and ground nuts, wheat or rice, that is common in Spain and Latin America.  

“When it’s hot, [horchata is] a very refreshing drink, and we thought that the weather called for it,” Varanasi said.

For many students, this was their first exposure to the drink, and club members had their hands full explaining what horchata was made from.

“It was a little bit difficult to explain to people because at first it kinda looked like something that’s unnatural and something that’s a little bit weird to people,” Varanasi said. “So we had to explain what it was and then once they drank it most people liked it, and they actually came back for more.”

Senior Pooja Dandekar was one of those skeptics. She wasn’t about to turn down a cold drink on a hot day, but having never tried horchata before, she was unsure of what to expect.

“I didn’t even know what it was, or how to pronounce it,” Dandekar said.

But she found herself pleasantly surprised, and even went back for more. The club even sold out of the drink, making over $50 for the relief effort.

“We’re mainly just doing whatever we can to help and volunteer,” Varanasi said.

This fundraiser was a key example of how school clubs, leadership and the student body are coming together to face global issues. And as natural disasters ravage the globe, MVHS will continue to show support for relief efforts worldwide.