Designing change through henna: Suvali Giridaran
Traveling to India freshman year, senior Suvali Giridaran taught English, drawing and a classical Indian dance called “Bharatanatyam” at a rural government school that had not received much funding. Because of this, a non-profit organization called “Project Mardhani” was created by Giridaran to donate the proceeds to the school.
“Education is honestly the most important thing that you can carry on with throughout your life,” Giridaran said. “Just because you weren’t the best student now, doesn’t mean that you can’t be the best student later on. Education is a lifelong thing that shouldn’t be stopped after high school or after graduation.”
In Giridaran’s native language, Tamil, Mardhani means “henna,” which is what Project Mardhani consists of. Clients come from baby showers, weddings and students at MHS or outside.
“Getting started was one of the hardest things and getting busy with all the appointments around this time,” Giridaran said. “But I definitely found how to manage time.”
As of now, the project is educational based with the most recent development being a $1,000 grant or scholarship preparation books for the children in India. However, with Giridaran planning to go into the medical field after graduation, she hopes the project spreads to not only help with educational needs, though as well with medical needs.
“You don’t really know what’s gonna happen unless you try it,” Giridaran said. “So, have faith in yourself.”
Serving up a legacy: Richie Andrzejewski
During his junior year, senior Richie Andrzejewski worked alongside last year’s senior Sonny Hoekstra and others to start up a boys’ volleyball team in Munster High School. Andrzejewski has played volleyball ever since fifth grade and wanted to continue and be involved in the creation of the team for the high school. In his senior year, he got the position of being the libero, who keeps the back row under control during a game.
“I try to help the junior varsity kids who are going to be filling in our shoes, especially with the fact that we have eight seniors this year and two to three people returning to varsity next year,” Andrzejewski said.
As graduation comes closer, Andrzejewski hopes the team will grow bigger and eventually get a freshmen team since JV and varsity are established so far.
“Volleyball is probably the most fun sport at the school,” Andrzejewski said. “It’s helped me learn more teamwork skills—being able to get things done together as a group since it’s a team sport and nothing can get done with just one person.”
Food for thought: Genesis Greenwood
Starting today during all lunches, a student idea created by senior Genesis Greenwood, junior Jacob Goddard and sophomore Ahsan Jabbar, Well Chew, will be tested near the Horseshoe. Well Chew is a pre-order service for students to skip the long lines in the cafeteria after signing up and receiving a number. Cold lunch will be served first before anything else to see how the process goes.
“We’re starting from the cold line, see how people react to it and then will start branching to other things like hot food,” Greenwood said.
This idea had been planned in Kristin Laflech’s new venture development class and soon presented to Chartwells and eventually to admin.
“When we got Mr. Docter on board, I said ‘Okay, if he could like it, I think other people will too,’ then we went to Chartwells,” Greenwood said. “The final person was Mr. Snyder—he really started helping us, saying where we should place it and we should talk the custodians for the table set up. He helped us make this happen.”
