Schools
Mills High Clubs Pitch In $3,600 to Japan Relief Fund
The Mills High School Interact Club and Japanese National Honor Society present check to Rotary International district governor.
In the wake of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, Mills High School’s Interact Club issued a challenge to all school clubs that it would match funds for any group that could raise $1,500.
“We challenged the school,” said Alan Kirth, advisor to the Interact Club, which is sponsored by the Rotary Club of Millbrae. “But the only group to step up to the plate was the (Japanese National Honor Society) club.”
JNHS exceeded the matching grant amount by raising more than $2,000.
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The Interact Club and JNHS today presented a combined check of $3,672.69 to the Rotary District 5150 Charitable Foundation.
William Koefoed, district governor for Rotary International, said the donation would be matched several times and could grow to as much $28,000, with none of the funds going to toward administration costs or overhead.
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Koefoed said the district’s foundation has raised more than $70,000 for the Japan relief effort.
“This check will be in our newsletter this month and it will inspire more Rotarians to add money to this pool,” he said.
He said the money would eventually pay for a specific relief project in Japan.
Kiara Simpao, co-president of JNHS, said her club members decorated tissue boxes to collect donations and asked students to give during fourth period. The club raised the money in about two weeks.
“It makes us happy because we were able to help the people in Japan,” Simpao said.
She said she has been taking Japanese classes since freshman year and feels a connection to the country’s culture and history.
Ji Park and Chantel Yip, co-presidents of Interact Club, said they wanted to give back to Japan, especially since Japanese rotarians donated during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
“Kids just filled the boxes with quarters and dollars and it just went crazy,” said Jane Spencer Mills, a Japanese teacher at Mills High.
And, the students aren’t stopping with this cause.
Interact clubs around the district will converge at Mills High on May 14 for a walkathon, Paces for Polio.