History

10:53 PM Unknown 1 Comments

It all began with a Staedtler eraser -- our friendship and H.O.P.E. Such an ordinary object brought together a bond that would eventually become the foundation for H.O.P.E.'s creation.

On the second day of our sophomore year, I (Sandy Chan) asked Helen Ding to borrow an eraser in our trigonometry class. Now I usually have all the utensils I need for class, but it just so happened that I forgot mine that day. This little act of clumsiness of mine, however, paved the way for our friendship as we continued to work together throughout the year.

On a day, which was like every other, Helen cheerily walked into the room like her usual self and announced that we should create a club. When I asked what type of club, however, she said she wasn't sure. Now based on what I knew about her at the time, I thought that she was just joking since she wants a lot of things. A few days later, though, she came in excitedly once again, and said, "Sandy, let's start a volunteer club!" My first thought was, is she serious? After all, creating a club, or as a matter of fact, a volunteer club in particular, is definitely not a simple task as it requires putting in extra time and effort outside of school as well. Helen was really enthusiastic about this idea, but I, on the other hand, had more worries than anything else. Would this even work out? I wondered.

Regardless, we went along with the idea and despite the never-ending obstacles that were constantly thrown at us, things did work out. H.O.P.E. began with the meeting of two unknowing sophomores, but we hope that it'll bring even more people together in the future.

--- Written with Co-founders Helen Ding and Sandy Chan's account of their meeting from Sandy Chan's point-of-view