ArtReach, a art-charity based club, set off on a rocky start because they were not renewed as a club for the 2018-2019 school year. Which meant that their club would not be permitted to continue, however luckily they were able to fix this problem. Normally most clubs that failed to submit forms are set to begin next semester, but due to an influx of clubs running into similar problems, an exception was made: these ‘new’ clubs would start this semester. This allowed ArtReach to continue on running.

A new group of officers is running ArtReach this year, and at the helm is co-president and senior Manasa Ganesh.

“I’m not really sure where to start, and also, the previous officers didn’t renew our club, so we had to go through [that] process,” Ganesh said. “All of our events are brand new. [You] have other clubs [that] I feel like would know what they’re going to do, because it’s like the same things from last year and in rotation, but for us, we’re finding new things.”

Ganesh and junior Aishwarya Suresh, the Director of Community Outreach, plan to increase the representation of ArtReach through school-wide involved events. Some events they had in mind were art in the quad and stress-ball making for students during finals.

“[What] we’re trying to do now is trying to bring it to the bigger MVHS community and get students to use art as a way that they can express themselves [and] relieve stress,” Suresh said.

In order to reach a larger audience, Suresh and the officers are going to host an art event in December where all students can participate. The event will take place near the finals and have students make stress-relief balls.

“We’re trying to do now is try to bring it to the bigger MVHS community and get students to use art as a way that they can express themselves, relieve stress” Suresh said.

Along with these new events, Suresh and the other officers’ visions for ArtReach are shifting from last year’s: this time they’re attempting to reach out more to the community.

Public relations officer and sophomore Ramya Chamkeri and the other officers are attempting to recruit members and promote their name through posters. In reaching out to the community Chamkeri hopes ArtReach will move into student’s radar.

“I feel that it’s because, since it was a pretty recent club, it’s only been open for a couple years, like one or two, it’s not really, widely known around campus,” Chamkeri said. “I do recall the last year, I had seen no sign of Artreach at all there wasn’t [any] promotion or any posters of it at all.”

Suresh joining just this year has hopes for what ArtReach can become. Although their officer team doesn’t have any veteran officers, with the last team all graduating last year, Suresh believes that ArtReach has great potential.

Along with increasing their role in the MVHS community, Ganesh and Suresh want to create events that also affect Cupertino as a whole physically by providing aid in the form of arts and crafts. The aid they’re planning to provide will range from decorations for classrooms to valentine cards for the elderly.

“Last year, we made origami for [a] children’s hospital, but we never gave it to them, because they were like, ‘Oh, sorry, we can’t take outside stuff,’” Ganesh said. “So I think we need to solidify our events and make sure that we can actually do it. And, help more people make a bigger impact.”

For instance, Ganesh plans to create posters supporting mindfulness to hang up in classrooms. Suresh is looking to put ArtReach’s crafts into practical use. Having worked with school’s in India Suresh saw many mindfulness posters and wants to make use of ArtReach’s crafts to create mindfulness poster which can be hung up in classrooms.

“Things we’re doing for the broader community, outside of MVHS is more stuff like we’re looking at different places where we can donate our work,” Suresh said. “And one of those places [are] different schools that are more low income [and] could use our artwork to decorate their schools more.”

Chamkeri hopes that by spreading ArtReach’s name and creating more events, students will become more passionate and join. Chamkeri learned about ArtReach through her friends and joined in order to follow her passion of art.

“I had no idea it was a club on campus and I’m passionate about art and I’m also passionate about volunteering,” Chamkeri said. “It was just a great way to volunteer and get volunteer hours and at the same time be able to carry out my passion through the club.”

Currently, ArtReach has two meetings set for November and a event planned for December. In November, they hope to spread word of their club through posters, and December’s event is planned to be stress-relief related.

“I think that maybe making posters and promotions this year would be a significant step towards becoming a big club,” Chamkeri said. “I just want to make sure the club becomes a tight knit family and that everyone can find something that they really love while they’re there.”