A year of service: Irvine high school students find new ways to connect
In lieu of common high school events like football games and homecoming, it has been a year of service for a couple of Irvine high school students.
Amerdeep Passananti and Leyland Yang, two University High School students, have put together drives to meet the needs of those affected by COVID-19 and fire evacuations since the start of the school year.
“Our school community doesn’t really seem united,” Passananti said. “We’re like two different schools. People don’t really talk. It wasn’t the same energy we saw in the prior years before COVID.”
In September, Irvine Unified School District opened classrooms with a hybrid learning model. University High students were separated into two cohorts. Each student attends in-person classes twice a week. As Associated Student Body service project coordinators, Passananti and Yang settled on competitions of service among the school’s grade levels as a way to connect with each other and help out Irvine residents at the same time.
The first drive was for face masks, hand sanitizer and antimicrobial wipes. Yang noticed a need for face masks early on as he saw his dad, who is a doctor, reuse a mask for four days because his hospital had a shortage. They collected over 2,000 masks, 34.5 gallons of hand sanitizer, 1,150 gloves and 795 wipes to donate to OC Rescue Mission.
Newport Harbor High School Spanish teacher Renzzo Reyes spent an average of about six hours on the road, driving the 107 miles it takes for him to get to work from his home in Tijuana daily.
The second drive focused on the aftermath of the Silverado fire in October. The high school campus was used as an evacuation center for Irvine residents — some of which were also University High students. On the day the fires hit Irvine, the students led an impromptu project to donate food and water to the school’s shelter as well as collecting thank you letters for firefighters written by people from Irvine to Iran.
In time for Thanksgiving, the students also led a drive to gather canned foods from local elementary schools where they talked to kids about the effects the coronavirus pandemic on families and food security.
They also opened up the canned food drive to the city. Passananti said they announced the drive on the hyper-local social networking website Nextdoor. They were on Nextdoor’s trending list and connected with University High alumni. The students collected six large trash bins of canned and boxed food to donate to Families Foward.
“I had doubts about whether some of our plans would work, but the response from the community really shattered our expectations,” Yang said.
A structure fire extended into nearby vegetation in Silverado Canyon, which just in October was the site of the Silverado fire. As of noon Thursday, the fire exploded to an estimated 7,200 acres with zero containment.
Although Irvine Unified campuses have shut down once again due to poor air quality from the Bond fire that erupted Wednesday night, the last drive of 2020 goes on. The districtwide drive is collecting essential items like hygiene products, school supplies and cleaning items to donate as holiday stockings. The drive will last from Dec. 1 to Dec. 11. Each participating high school can choose a local charity to donate to such as Salvation Army, Laura’s House or the Friendship Shelter.
The local impact of University High spread through Irvine Unified. But Passananti and Yang are hoping for something even bigger.
“One of the best parts is seeing the impact we have around our community and I hope that we could really inspire other high schools in the Southern California region to follow suit as well,” Passananti said.
For more information about the Irvine Unified’s holiday drive, visit universityhigh.iusd.org/asb.
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