Gunn Students—At the World's Service

not only turns out some of the country’s brightest thinkers and innovators, the school is starting to create a whole new kind of entrepreneur—the social entrepreneur.

Through the resurgence of one of the school’s previously defunct, voluntary, parent-booster community service programs, “Gunn @ Your Service,” a host of students are being helped to take their ideas for making their community—and the world—a better place, and turning them into reality.

Eight students have just learned they are the 2011-12 recipients of a “Gunn @ Your Service” grant, which provides funding to help turn innovative ideas for community service and charitable projects into real, functioning programs.

This year’s projects range from bringing music education and sports to underprivileged children and schools, to improving the Palo Alto Baylands, to helping children in poorer countries learn to read.

Lauren Janov, a Gunn parent who helped bring the program back to life at the school after it had been dormant for many years, said the energy, motivation and creativity of the children who received this year’s grants is nothing short of inspiring.

“It’s amazing to me how the kids are able to figure out what they want to do, and go out there and find an application for it,” she said. “I think the projects this year are really extraordinary. Some are making a difference right here in Palo Alto, and others are helping people halfway around the world.”

Janov said, when members of Gunn asked her to help recreate the program and get it going on campus again, she was happy to do so.

“Personally, when I was in high school, I did some volunteer work, and it was just a very powerful experience for me, in a multitude of different ways,” she explained. “It was something I knew high school kids were capable of doing—they might just need some structure and guidance. So I thought it was important to help create a generation of kids that has [service] as a part of what they do. I really wanted to help create an energy around community service for the kids.”

Janov said she is also happy to see how the projects started by some students carry on, even after they graduate and go on to college or other endeavors.

Stephanie Tsai, who graduated from Gunn last year and is now studying at Stanford University, is a former recipient of a “Gunn @ Your Service” grant. She used her grant money to help start an after-school music program at Costano Elementary in East Palo Alto, where there is no funding for music classes.

Stephanie said, she had been volunteering her time to teach piano at Costano since she was a sophomore, but the demand by students who wanted to learn to play an instrument became so big, she knew she couldn’t handle it all herself. Plus, access to instruments the students could practice on was limited.

“So, last year, I decided to expand the program and get other Gunn students to start teaching as well,” she said.

“The major problem we had, though, was finding instruments,” she explained. “I borrowed some from the school district, but we realized the grant could really help in getting more, so students could take them home and practice. So that’s what we’re using the money for now.”

Thanks to the grant money and other students getting involved, the program now teaches 24 students to play music, and has anywhere from five to eight Gunn students at a time volunteering, teaching two to three students each.

Now that Stephanie has graduated from Gunn and is over at Stanford, her younger sister, Lily Tsai, now a junior at Gunn, has taken over the program. Lily is a grant recipient this year, and is keeping the music lessons at Costano going strong. Lily teaches violin and piano as part of the program.

“It’s really been great. I’m very happy to see the program continue,” said Stephanie.

Tatiana Grossman, also a junior at Gunn, is using her “Gunn @ Your Service” grant to help teach another valuable skill—reading, to children in Africa.

This is Tatiana’s second year in a row as a grant recipient. Her project, Gunn’s Africa Literacy Club, helps collect enough books each year to fill a small library in a town that needs one. Last year, she collected several thousand books for a library in Malawi.

“I was really happy [to get the grant],” she said. “I used it to help with shipping the library to Malawi. The grant really helps with the shipping costs.”

Though this is only Tatiana’s second year receiving the grant, she has been collecting and sending books for African libraries since she was 12.

She said, the first time she did it, it cost her roughly $400 to ship 1,000 children's books. To cover the costs, she collected donations from people who wanted to help, she applied for other small grants, and her family contributed some money as well.

This year, she is already hard at work collecting books, and determining which library in Africa they will go to.

“I know it will be somewhere in Africa, and I know it will really help kids over there learn to read,” she said.

Below is a list of the other 2011-12 grant recipients, in addition to Lily Tsai and Tatiana Grossman.

“We are exceptionally proud to be supporting these outstanding projects,” Janov, the president of the program, said.

Freshman Leland Wei’s grant will purchase construction materials he needs to renovate a walking path in the Palo Alto Baylands.

Sophomore Arjun Parikh will use his grant for a summer soccer camp that will support Right to Play, a charity that improves the lives of disadvantaged children through sport and play.

Sophomore Divya Saini’s grant will pay for an education campaign preparing Palo Altans for earthquakes.

Junior Sungkook Peter Kim will be using his grant to provide sheet music and music stands to Gunn musicians performing for war veterans in the Palo Alto Veterans’ Hospital.

Junior Praniti Sinha’s grant will help Gunn’s Asha Club run a fundraiser for Asha for Education, an organization which provides computers, food and education to orphans in Bangalore, India.

Senior Natasha Allen will spend her grant to ship academic books to South Sudan in cooperation with the Sudan-American Foundation for Education and STAND, the student arm of the Genocide Intervention Network.