Maine South High senior Chloe Bai read the headlines out of Afghanistan in summer 2021 and was so moved by the plight of refugees that she started a school club to help families whose lives had been upended.
“I wanted to start the club to help Afghanistan families and raise awareness about that,” Bai said.
In the past, the Hawks 4 Refugees club has put on candy sales and Chipotle fundraisers to help raise money for newly arrived families, and recently raised $700 for a newly arrived family of refugees through a holiday “thrift store” in its largest-scale effort so far.
The money went to purchase a welcome kit for a recently arrived family in the area. It consisted of household goods like plates, cutlery and grocery items — “furnishing the whole apartment minus the actual furniture,” English teacher and faculty advisor Laura Kirshner said.
The idea of the welcome kit was “giving [families] the necessities that they needed to feel like they’re walking into a home, not just a blank canvas,” she added.
The family just arrived in Park Ridge from Afghanistan, Kirshner said. The students have not met the family members, who are still settling into their new location, Bai said.
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To plan for the thrift store, Kirshner said the club collected donations of clothes, shoes and accessories and ran the store during lunch periods for two days around winter break.
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Most visitors to the store purchased something, but the donations were also available to some Maine South students and leftover clothes were donated, Bai said.
“Even though our focus was to help refugees, we ended up having a lot of positive effect on people who weren’t refugees as well,” she said.
Bai estimated that it had taken 25 to 30 people to put on the event. It was a firsthand lesson in what it takes to put on a major event, she said.
“Helping people is always so rewarding, even though… it takes a lot of effort to find something that’s big,” Bai said. “It’s always worth it in the end even if it has a huge price tag or takes a lot of labor.”
Aside from walking away with a new piece of clothing, Bai said she saw many students leave the event with “more perspective” on the club and its mission.
“A lot of people come to the club [and] a lot of people came to the thrift store not knowing anything about refugees,” she said. “I think it just raised a lot of excitement for people in the club and also those outside of it.”
Bai said she expects to see Hawks 4 Refugees continue after she graduates.
“There’s a couple of really dedicated members of the club, so I hope that one of them will take over for me,” she said.
She hopes the thrift store will become a tradition as well, but it matters more to her that money gets raised for refugee families than the specific means of fundraising.
“Just as long as money gets raised to help refugees, I think everything is great,” Bai said.