Emily Korba ‘16 and Manjula Andukuri ‘16 extended the Serving Our Society Club (SOS) to Westwood. SOS was initially founded at McNeil High School, but the two juniors wanted to open this rewarding opportunity to more students.

SOS provides community service projects that students can fit into their packed days. All the projects have a humanitarian focus from food drives to making care packages for the homeless and underprivileged.

“We wanted to start a club where, rather than just looking for community service hours and a title to put on a college application, members could really gain a passion for service that would fit into their busy schedules,” Korba said.

After the founders discovered SOS, they began the process of adding it to the school in December 2013. It was approved later in September 2014. SOS meets on the second and the fourth Wednesday of each month at 8:30 a.m. in Mrs. Harland’s room (E2212).

“Even though we’re small, our members are very involved and participate whenever they can, which is awesome!” Andukuri said. “We definitely plan to keep growing, so we can have more members to do more projects – we want to have volunteer opportunities outside of school at least monthly.”

The meetings are more productive than many others. Instead of planning and flipping through PowerPoints, they use this time to do service projects such as putting together care packages for donation to the Trinity Center or making tags for the St. Austin’s Christmas Basket Project.

“It’s important for everybody to learn to lend a hand and add a little selflessness to the world because there are always people who need help,” Korba said. “If you just look around, you can find a million opportunities to serve your community. I think that working to help other people is one of the most rewarding things a person can do, and everyone should have the opportunity to experience that.”