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Building a Kinder World: Riley’s Way Browning Chapter 2023-24 Recap
Riley’s Way Foundation invests in and supports the next generation of kind leaders. Through our blogs, we spotlight youth voices as they work to make the world a better place.
Riley’s Way Chapters bring together a group of young changemakers within one high school, college, or community group to create opportunities for them to model leading with empathy and kindness and to create a positive change on a social impact issue that matters to them. Hear from the Riley’s Way Chapter at The Browning School in New York City on their past year of kind leadership!
Interested in getting involved? Visit our Chapters page to learn more about Riley’s Way Chapters and our other programs.
By Liam Oliver and Natanael Mota , Browning Chapter co-chairs
As another school year comes to a close, it’s important to reflect on the journey that the Browning Riley’s Way Chapter has gone on. Our year has been filled with inspiring initiatives, community-building events, and meaningful social impact projects that have touched the lives of many, mostly revolving around the central theme of helping others in our community.
We started off our year with a schoolwide sandwich drive in November with the goal of providing turkey and cheese sandwiches for those in need around Thanksgiving. While I was happy that our Chapter, with the assistance of many other Browning students, was able to make nearly 200 sandwiches, I only truly understood the impact of what we had done when we interacted with the people near the food bank as we distributed sandwiches. Seeing the look of joy on their faces made the hours planning this event worth it and gave us a sense of pride as some of them expressed their thanks since they were struggling economically.
We launched our next initiative within the Browning community. A couple of members of our Chapter decided that it was important that we introduce Riley’s Way to the lower school students at an assembly and talk to them about the importance of kindness. We thought it would be great to plant the seed of kindness into the younger boys so they could start growing into the future kind leaders of the Browning’s Riley’s Way Chapter. We further discussed with them how Riley’s Way spreads kindness by showing some events from last year, such as volunteering at the Flushing Food Collaborative. We introduced them to what kindness meant to us and how we thought we could spread kindness into the community with hope that they would take inspiration from us and start their own kind initiative, either in Browning or independently.
Next, we decided to collaborate with a past Call for Kindness fellow, Dylan Zajac . Dylan is the founder of Computers 4 People , a non-profit that collects and refurbishes used computers to give to those who need them. After a Zoom meeting with Dylan, we decided that our Chapter would reach out to Browning students and faculty to hold a computer drive to help give computers to people who aren’t able to afford them. We would collect old or broken computers and we would donate them to Computers 4 People so that they could be refurbished and given to people in need of a device. In the end, we ended up donating 32 computer wires, 1 projector, 4 Mac desktop monitors, 3 printers, and 37 MacBook Air laptops. This collaboration helped us demonstrate the potential our chapter had and helped us establish what we hope to be a yearly event that will go on for generations of leaders.
After seeing many wild animals on a school trip to Central Park, our Chapter was interested in supporting animal shelters and specifically wanted to work with Animal Haven, a past Call for Kindness project. After a discussion with the school’s administrators and Riley’s ways staff, our chapter, we decided that the best way we could support Animal Haven
was to show support was to raise money through a schoolwide raffle. For about a week, we would ask for donations from members of the Browning community in exchange for some raffle tickets. We raffled off some Browning merch, a pair of Yeezy shoes, a basketball, and a speaker, and we raised $472 for Animal Haven. We are very excited about continuing to help their shelter out through future donations and volunteering!
For our final event, we decided to go back to our roots with a collaborative sandwich drive with the Brearley Chapter. It was great to interact and work with Brearley students as we prepared sandwiches, learning how a different Chapter functioned from ours and ways to improve our own. After completing the making process, we celebrated what both of our Chapters had achieved that year as we departed to deliver the sandwiches for what would be for both Chapters our final event of the year. As a group we made a hundred sandwiches and distributed them to community fridges in the Manhattan area.
In conclusion, the 2023-24 school year was full of success for the Browning Riley’s Way Chapter. From making sandwiches for those in need and engaging younger students in kindness initiatives, to donating technology to bridge the digital divide and supporting animal shelters, we are truly happy that we were able to support those around us. Each project reinforced our commitment to helping others and building a better and kinder world.
We extend our heartfelt thanks to Naledi Semela , Lauren Shenkman , and Thais Salas for their unwavering support and guidance throughout the year. Their contributions have been invaluable to our success, and our Chapter looks forward to continuing our mission of kindness, empathy, and community in the years to come.
This blog is available to read on the Riley’s Way Foundation LinkedIn page.