Brooks Kahsai

On Friday, May 13 several students from the Mercer Island Music Program and the UNICEF club partnered together to create a fundraiser to support refugees in Ukraine.

The idea was started with junior Grace Go, who wanted to find a way to help support the refugees. Go talked to junior Sidh Shroff and they put together a group of people to organize a fundraiser.

 “I originally had this idea of creating a fundraiser and I contacted Sidh first […] and then we got more and more people involved and all of them are students,” Go said. 

Go and Shroff shared their idea with Alex Weil, the president of the UNICEF club, who also decided to get involved. 

“We partnered with Alex, she’s currently a junior here at the high school and she founded the UNICEF club,” Go said. “Through her, we were able to raise funds for this cause.”

Go, Weil and Shroff decided to use their connections within the high school’s music program to gather more students who were interested in the cause.

“Grace really had this vision and she really wanted to execute it […] I have lots of connections within pretty much every spot of the music programs across the high school,” Shroff said.

The fundraiser was composed of several student musicians who the audience found very good. 

The fundraiser ended up raising $1980, with many people showing up to contribute and support the cause.

“We were on a bit of a time crunch but we are really happy with how it turned out,” Go said. “We are all aware of what’s happening in Ukraine and we as citizens, we can’t directly help what’s happening but as students, we felt the passion to try to help the Ukrainian refugees.”