By Matthew Leger / Herald Forum
In 2007, Hugs For Ghana was founded by Kamiak High School student Rachel Bervell and her peers to collect teddy bears for Ghana’s youth. Fifteen years on, Hugs for Ghana has become Hugs For. Students across the U.S. have employed the exact student-led model to form branches for Sierra Leone, Benin, Kenya and Tanzania; efforts have expanded to education and medical supplies; and student leaders have helped donate thousands to children across Africa.
Jenny Choi, a rising senior and president of Hugs For Ghana at Kamiak, explains why she got into Hugs. “ I loved the mission of Hugs as a teen-driven initiative to help other kids across the world,” she said. “It seemed incredible that not only could I make such a tangible impact to my community, but to communities thousands of miles away! It’s given me so many opportunities to grow as a leader and as a teammate on different projects we’ve done.”
By utilizing hundreds of students over the years, the impact of Hugs spreads much farther than the walls of a Hugs group. It is many students’ first experiences in funding for and working with nonprofit organizations; introducing many to the charity field and inspiring young voices to become more involved in their community.
Hugs’ efforts to grow a network of youth leaders and volunteers have allowed their message to grow within schools.
The Hugs for Ghana campaign at Kamiak repeatedly works with the ASB and school officials to spread the message. However, some schools in Everett have left this unique organization-school relationship unemployed. The Hugs organization grows with student leaders learning about Hugs, and their website has an in-depth tools list to learn more about the mission and how to start a branch.
It provides students with the steps to help communities thousands of miles away. The effort needed to kick off a Hugs campaign at individual schools is as simple as finding people to participate. Spreading the message of Hugs, and supporting them through their website, fundraisers, or sweaters, is the best way to do this.
If any student or school is interested in this excellent message and format, we urge you to learn more through their website, Hugsfor.org.
Matthew Leger will be a junior this fall at Kamiak High School in Mukilteo. He is writing essays for Herald Forum about nonprofit groups in Snohomish County.
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