As the son of a family with an upper-middle-class income level, I don't find myself in a state of turmoil when faced with the extravagance that is inflation in California. However, just because I was born with a degree of privilege does not make me blind. When driving down the streets, I can observe the rapidly rising homeless population, and the price of gas skyrocketing to a degree that a full tank is nearly unaffordable for anybody with a lower level of income. As a teenager, I still see the issues my community has to face, and while I can't do a lot, I owe it to myself and my community to do something about it. That's why at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I created an organization called I Spy Stories. The first thing we noticed is that during COVID-19, a lot of homeless people were likely getting ill because they don't have easy access to hygiene products. That's why the first initiative we did for the homeless population was donating nearly 50 hygiene kits to the homeless population, stocked full of wipes, snacks, hand sanitizer, and socks. This was a great event and had an impact on the community. A few months after, we donated blankets to a homeless shelter, as the weather in California had been relatively cold that winter. For that event, we took donations of blankets and got a total of 64 blankets between here and India. That means that 64 more people were not cold during the winter. These blankets and the care packages were both donated to the San Fernando Rescue Mission. The next initiative we did was what we called the "Road To 300 - RAKTIVISMS." Raktivism is a term that my organization decided to coin... it translates to "Random Act of Kindness Activism." All the members of my organization banded together and decided to see who could have the most StaRAKtivist titles (the person who did the most Random Acts Of Kindness each week got an Instagram post in their honor). We soared past the goal of 300 in about 52 days. As we reached the 1st anniversary of the organization, we decided to do all the events we did previously, but better. The second run of care packages gave us over 60 care packages, all of which were significantly higher quality than the previous year, containing many more hygiene products. We reached a similar goal on the blankets and hit 500 RAKTIVISMS. All of the donations listed here were given to the Hope Of The Valley Winter Shelter in Pacoima. However, we didn't stop there. This year we added 2 more initiatives to the repertoire. We started a book drive with the idea of giving a mini-library to the Hope Of The Valley Homeless Shelter. We got 2 plastic chests of drawers with wheels, and we thought that would be enough. However, we shattered the expectations on the book drive and ended up having enough books to donate over 200 books to 2 more shelters. During the summer, we also did a food drive, where we bought ingredients and put together lunch bags for 60 people in the Bridge To Home Shelter in Newhall. For the best part of this organization: the whole thing is funded by recycling. The members collect bottles and cans, and we make the money. This is having a positive impact on the environment, as well as the people in our community. I have strived to do something that could help my community, and because of this organization that I had created... I can.

The supposed hardest years of high school, 11th and 12th grade, were made even more difficult by the fact that a new chronic health issue had to arise in October 2021. At this time, I began to feel a piercing pain in my head which drove me out of school and into the office of a neurologist, who diagnosed me with chronic migraine headaches. A series of medical examinations and numerous external opinions led to the realization that nobody understood the cause of my headaches. I felt absolutely helpless. Let me tell you what I wish I'd known back then. Using my time to "focus" on healing would be a terrible idea leading to a backlog of work that would accumulate to months of academic turmoil. I was absent through almost the entire second half of the first semester in 11th grade while focusing on my health, and while I'd love to say that it was worth it, my condition didn't improve. I missed my finals due to my incapability to really focus on anything. I had winter break and 6 weeks of the second semester to get my grades from the previous semester straight. During winter break... I did nothing! I focused on healing, believing that if I got better, I could put my head to the grindstone during the first 6 weeks of the semester and really maximize my performance. It didn't work. I tried a bunch of medications, I rested, I did acupuncture (and I do not recommend it personally). None of these changed a thing in my condition, in fact, I only got worse. When the second semester started, I realized how doomed I really was. Throughout this entire experience, my parents have been a rock for me. However, they tended to pander to my weakness for the entire time I was facing this issue. I was grateful for that at the time, but both my parents and I realized that we should've done more when we had the chance. They weren't about to stop though. They mustered up the strength to get my head in the game, and because of their strictness during this period of time, I was able to fight through the pain and finish all the work I needed to get done. All my teachers were incredibly accommodating of the fact that I needed to get my first semester's work done, and let me revolve the second semester's work around that. Without my parents and teachers, this would've been a quite literally impossible task, but with their help, I was able to fight and got a 4.21 GPA that semester. To this day, I haven't recovered from my health issues. I have my highs and lows, and am still frequently absent, but now, because of my parents and teachers, I understand that consistency is a virtue worth maintaining.

As the son of a family with an upper-middle class income level, I don't find myself in a state of turmoil when faced with the extravagance that is inflation in California. However, just because I was born with a degree of privilege does not make me blind. When driving down the streets, I am able to observe the rapidly rising homeless populations, the price of gas skyrocketing to a degree that a full tank is nearly unaffordable for anybody with a lower level of income. As a teenager, I still see the issues my community has to face, and while I can't do a lot, I owe it to myself and my community to do something about it. That's why in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I created an organization called I Spy Stories. This organization currently has a laser-focus on the homeless population, but approximately 2 years ago, when we started, it was far more broad. California was facing the worst wildfire season that we had ever seen a few months before the creation of I Spy Stories, so rather than helping the homeless as our first act of philanthropy, we actually did a walk to collect snacks for the local Fire Station on 9/11. Without that group of firefighters, my house would have most definitely burnt down, so me and my entire organization wanted to express our gratitude towards them. After that, we pinpointed the issue of homelessness, as it was impossible to ignore. It was rapidly on the rise, especially in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first thing we noticed is that during COVID-19, a lot of homeless people were likely getting ill because they don't have easy access to hygiene products. That's why the first initiative we did for the homeless population was donating nearly 50 hygiene kits to the homeless population, stocked full of wipes, a couple of small snacks, hand sanitizer, and socks. This was a great event, and likely had some degree of impact for the community. A few months after, we decided to donate blankets to a homeless shelter, as the weather in California had been relatively cold that winter (I say that now, but I'd PRAY to have another winter like that soon... it's constantly over 100 degrees outside when I'm writing this). For that event, we took donations of blankets, and got a grand total of 64 blankets between here and India. That means that 64 more people were not cold during the winter. These blankets and the care packages were both donated to the San Fernando Rescue Mission. The next initiative we did was what we called the "Road To 300 - RAKTIVISMS." Now, Raktivism is a term that my organization decided to coin... it translates to "Random Act of Kindness Activism." All the members of my organization banded together and decided to see who could have the most StaRAKtivist titles (the person who did the most Random Acts Of Kindness each week got an Instagram post in their honor). We soared past the goal of 300 in about 52 days. Now after this was what I call the "rerun saga." We did all the initiatives that we did earlier again. The 9/11 walk, the care packages, the blankets, and the RAKTIVISMs... we did it all again, plus more, and better. Our second run of the 9/11 walk gave us triple the snacks that the first one gave due to the immense growth of the organization in the past year. The second run of care packages gave us over 60 care packages, all of which were significantly higher quality than the previous year, containing many more hygiene products. We reached a similar goal on the blankets, and hit 500 RAKTIVISMS. All of the donations listed here were given to the Hope Of The Valley Winter Shelter in Pacoima. However, we didn't stop there. This year we added 2 more initiatives to the repertoire. We started a book drive with the idea of giving a mini-library to the Hope Of The Valley Homeless Shelter. We got 2 small-ish plastic chests of drawers with wheels, and we thought that would be enough. However, we shattered the expectations on the book drive, and ended up having enough books to donate over 100 books to 2 more shelters each. During the summer, we also did a food initiative, where we bought ingredients and put together lunch bags for 60 people in the Bridge To Home Shelter in Newhall. Now, the money came from somewhere. We gained these funds by recycling A LOT of cans and bottles. This is having a positive impact on the environment, as well as the people in our community. I have strived to do something that could help my community, and because of this organization that I had created... I finally can.

My days at Granada have been somewhat... hectic so far. I am a sophomore. In the first semester of 9th grade, we faced the huge California fires where so many of us had to evacuate, and in spring, we obviously started facing COVID. Now, what does that have to do with giving back to my community? Throughout this, well, harsh would be an understatement to describe this time, I have been consistently taking actions to impact the lives of the people harshly influenced by these disasters. I may not be a firefighter, out there risking my life every day, but I hosted a walk at the park to collect snacks for them and raise awareness. I may not be a world-renowned virologist, but I can raise the moral of the people who have been brought down through game nights. I may not be able to stop the increasingly large homeless population, but I can try to help them have better conditions by donating hygiene products, snacks, and blankets. My name is Neil Chakravarty, and I created an organization called I Spy Stories during my time at Granada. Our mission is to spread decency within our interactions and communications. We do things such as live events with a panel of experts in different fields, including pediatrics, oncology, psychology, technology, etc. We also host game nights every now and then to lighten the mood. The most recent one was the Among Us Game Night on Halloween. We have a group of peer contributors, and we all write stories of parts of our lives and post it on the website, because everything that happens is a story. And finally, as I stated before, we do community service activities, such as the firefighter’s walk on 9/11 and the blanket drive that we just finished yesterday (2/18). I Spy Stories is the community service project that can help other people do things also. We have peer contributors that help with the community service projects, and we couldn’t do it without them. For example, I’m not very good at art, so when creating designed cards for the care packages for the homeless, I’d be stumped. However, we have our peer contributors that have a vast skill set, which is why we couldn’t do it without them. I Spy Stories is a place where I give back to my community, and a place where we are also giving other people the opportunity to give back.