A Look into Samo's New Clubs

M.D.’s to BeIf you were to visit Ms. Andrea Shore in room L101 during lunch on any given Monday afternoon, you would find yourself amid our school’s aspiring doctors and nurses. M.D.’s to Be is a new club, started by Karina Gunn (’21), who aspires to work in the medical field and had been actively looking for hospital experience.  Upon realizing there were likely others at Samo with similar goals, she thought it would be a great idea to start a medical club and team it with a willing clinic. Gunn was able to form a partnership with the Westside Family Health Clinic, a low cost, local health center. The club has a two-part mission: first, to give members the opportunity to get medical volunteer experience, and second, to improve the clinic. “We are also planning on fundraising for [the clinic] so that they can further improve their health care services,” Gunn said.Should you decide to join M.D.’s to Be, be prepared to not only commit to volunteering at the clinic, but to also be an active participant in meetings. Meetings will consist of discussing fundraising options, volunteer opportunities and planning educational activities such as shadowing a physician for a day. Pass it OnPass it On is a club with a mission of providing resources to sports-centered schools located in Congo-Brazzaville, Africa. These schools are known as CF Gothia schools, which specialize in training about 300 underprivileged children in soccer, beach volleyball and gymnastics. The leader of Pass it On, London Wilkes (’21), learned of the CF Gothia schools while playing in a soccer tournament in Sweden. While there, Wilkes and her teammates donated items such as cleats and shin guards to Equmenia, an organization working to build the schools. Since the 2015 tournament, Wilkes has kept in touch with a contact at Equmenia who has kept her very interested in their work with CF Gothia schools. Soccer is a very influential part of Wilkes’ life, and she hopes she can make a difference in other people’s lives by giving them the opportunity to fall in love with the sport, or any of the other sports CF Gothia schools offer, in the same way she has.“My plan is to come up with fundraising ideas and to start a drive to donate sports equipment to [Equmenia] ,” Wilkes said.Meetings, which will be held in Ms. Sarah Paulis’ room (L107) on Tuesdays at lunch, will focus primarily on fundraising for Equemenia and the CF Gothia schools.  Earning for EducatorsIt is no secret that many members of the Santa Monica community feel that teachers at our schools deserve more classroom resources. For this reason, Ava Bayley (’20) plans to start a new club: Earning for Educators. The plan for Earning for Educators is to begin by raising awareness about teachers who have to to pay out of pocket for most of their supplies, such as student supplies or classroom decorations. Though the school provides a base amount of money for these purposes, the allotment rarely covers a teacher’s ideal set of materials.Once Bayley begins raising awareness, ideally, community members will want to help provide teachers with more resources.  The goal is to raise money so that the aforementioned allotment will more fully cover teachers’ needs. Bayley, among others, feels strongly that our teachers are not given enough aid, both for the benefit of themselves and their students.“I believe this shouldn’t be considered the norm and through raising money we can give back to a few of these teachers!” Bayley said.Earning for Educators meetings will take place in Nicole Yumori’s room (L110) on Fridays at lunch. The meetings will begin by educating members more on the issue and will transition into a space for open discussion where each person’s fundraising ideas will be listened to and valued.