Madison ONeill

Dear Asian Youth members (from left to right) Yerin Oh (11), Anusha Sivadalla (11), Peyton Choi (11), Jessie Zeng (11), Sarayu Medasani (10), and Dania Nasreldeen (11) make stress balls for children in need from Vietnam. The goal of this activity was to spread awareness about the habits of smoking and the harms that it causes. “I found out that there was an organization and basically, they spread awareness about the habits of smoking, and they had a lot of events going towards kids in Vietnam.” Club president James Lam (11) said.

After school on Friday December 1, the members of the Dear Asian Youth club spent their time making stress balls for needy children in Vietnam. 

The Dear Asian Youth (DAY) club at Ayala hosts many different activities and meetings that help to support the Asian community locally. On this last meeting though, the club officers decided to expand their horizons and decided to help needy children in Vietnam through an organization with this stress ball making activity. The goal of this activity was to stop smoking habits for the people in Vietnam. With the event’s success, the officers of the Dear Asian Youth Club are hoping to do more activities like this that expands their horizons rather than just staying local. 

“We haven’t really done anything that’s gone to the bigger scale [such] as [helping] kids outside of the city or school, but we’re hoping to do more,” DAY Club President James Lam (11) said.   

The stress balls were made by funneling flour and a little bit of water into a balloon, tying the balloon, and drawing little designs. Each balloon was worth 30 minutes of service hours and each member was allowed to make as many stress balls as they wanted to make the students even more excited about spending their time for the needy. 

Other members of the club knew that this was a great idea to cooperate with their friends and peers as well as help underprivileged children since many of the activities that took place didn’t involve much member to member interaction. Making these stress balls was a great way to keep the students occupied spending time with their friends while making a difference in the world one small step at a time. 

“I really like how it was for Vietnamese kids [and] I just thought it was a good thing to help other kids who may have a hard time in their life,” DAY member Hana Kim (10) said.

Students were able to spend time with their friends, get service hours, and discover the different varieties of activities that expand beyond just helping our local community. This is just one of many things that Dear Asian Youth has done to help make Asian people feel supported and will definitely not be the last. 

“I think they’ll feel happy with some stuff that we put on the stress balls,” DAY Club Vice President Yerin Oh (11) said. “I think that maybe they’ll feel more encouraged or happy with our little drawings and messages.”