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Preparing to fill the balloon, Outreach Club Secretary Naomi Kini ’27 looks ahead as Elisabeth Roell ‘27 holds the balloon open. The pair often attends club meetings together, and previously bonded over creating a gingerbread house at the Outreach Winter Social.
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Attentive, Millie Sardan Toro ’28 and Elisabeth Roell ‘27 look toward the instructions screen, surrounding Deetyaa Shah ’27 who funnels cornstarch into their balloon. Shah is an active member of Outreach, and worked with President Sahiti Oruganti ’25 to figure out how to efficiently and cleanly make the stress balls.
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Stabilizing the funnel, Cecilia Chen ’28 prepares to put cornstarch into the balloon while Lasya Medikonduru ’28 holds it. Outreach Club has attracted many freshmen this year, displaying a large turnout of new club members.
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Holding a balloon, Apphia Lee ’27 points at the stress ball materials while Rucha Kapadia ’27 blows her balloon. Lee and Kapadia met in eigth grade and have since bonded over volunteering as well as spending time together outside of school.
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Creating a stress ball, Sriya Chakravarthy ’27 takes out Play-Doh as Aanya Solanki ’27 opens a balloon. The pair worked together to make the stress balls, with Solanki opening the balloon for Chakravarthy to put the materials in. “I think this is a newer activity,” Solanki said. “We haven’t done stuff like this in Outreach. Usually, we do more clean-up or a little bit more serious [activities].”
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Smiling, Millie Sardan Toro ’28 examines her burst balloon as Kyla Cretencio ’28 laughs. Although the pair made separate stress balls, they were able to bond over the creative endeavor.
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Pointing to the computer screen, Outreach Vice President Bailey Zhang ’25 points to the instructions for making stress balls for the watching club members. Zhang co-organized this event along with Communications Rep Sahanashri Sakthivelmoorthy ’26. :I will be shipping all of [the stress balls] to the organization that I’m a member of,” Zhang said. “I represent Outreach in it, and I communicate with them through being a part of Outreach.”
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Smiling, Avah Trice ’26 holds her half-filled balloon while looking at Ashima Carson ’26. Fulfilling one of the goals of Outreach Club, Trice and Carson were able to socialize with each other and create connections.
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Tapping into their creative side, Outreach Club met on Tuesday, Feb. 25 at the picnic tables outside of the school to create stress balls to give to stressed parents, through the organization Any Baby Can. Members not only enjoyed the unique bonding experience in the pleasant weather, but engaged in a novel Outreach event.
Club members filled balloons with Play-Doh and cornstarch to make the DIY squishy stress balls. They were able to engage in a creative and fun project while volunteering for the community and bonding with friends.
“My favorite part has been doing it with [my friend], and also cutting the Play-Doh and putting it inside the balloon,” Aanya Solanki ‘27 said. “Usually, I’m not making stuff this creative.”
The stress ball-making event was a collaboration with Any Baby Can, an organization that aims to strengthen families to aid busy parents in creating stability and fostering a healthy environment for their children, in an effort to ensure that both parents and children can succeed in their lives. Stress balls are donated and given to parents who have many responsibilities to promote emotional well-being with these simple relaxation tools.
“[The most fun parts are] knowing what I’m doing is going to help the community, [and] the activity is fun in general,” Lasya Medikonduru ‘28 said. “In most of the club meetings, we don’t tend to do really hands-on activities like this. It’s kind of messy as well, but it’s really fun.”
While Outreach Club is no stranger to hosting a variety of volunteer activities, most of the activities don’t typically involve hands-on creative endeavors. This event, along with its community benefit, was both artsy and messy. The mishaps that happened during the creation of the stress balls earned many laughs from officers and members alike as they bonded through attempting to make the stress balls.
“I’d never heard of this event before,” Vice President Bailey Zhang ‘25 said. “A lot of the time in volunteering, you end up with similar events, but I thought this would be a unique and fun way to try something new and also contribute to the community in a new way.”
Zhang was instrumental in leading this event, and has even officially registered with the Any Baby Can organization to represent Outreach. She instructed club members on how to create the stress balls, and plans to ship their stress balls to Any Baby Can, who will distribute them to parents in need.
“As an officer, we look for events online,” Zhang said. “While I was looking, I came upon this organization (Any Baby Can), which is really to promote family well-being, especially for people from lower income levels, and also especially for those with infant babies for their education. This event in particular, [however], is actually for the parents, since parenting can be really stressful and a new situation. [My favorite part of this event] is just making the DIY itself and just having fun with it, because I feel like if people are into arts and crafts, it’ll be fun.”
