While walking hand and hand with a child during her trip to Senegal, Wright finds the inspiration for her current project to send 22,000 books to Senegal.
This past year, Wright created a non-profit charity organization called Collective Change with help from a friend from Chantilly High School.
“The whole philosophy behind the name is from a quote by [South African activist] Desmond Tutu,” Wright said. “‘Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.’”
Throughout the past year, Collective Change has been an active charity working toward a number of different causes.
“Last March Collective Change organized a benefit concert of performances by musicians from Oakton at Jammin’ Java Cafe to fundraise for earthquake relief in Haiti,” Wright recalled. “This August, we had another fundraiser for Active Water, an organization that provides sand filters to remote villages in Zambia that lack clean drinking water.”
In the small amount of time before the holidays, Collective Change was looking for opportunities to work with other charity organizations.
“Even in October, Collective Change organized performances at Reston Interfaith’s Walk for the Homeless,” Wright recalled.
This holiday season Collective Change is staying as active as ever, working on their largest project yet: raising 7,000 dollars to send 22,000 books to schools across Senegal, located in West Africa.
“Last spring I traveled to Senegal with my French class and did various community service projects,” Wright said excitedly. “That experience has really inspired me to get Collective Change involved in doing anything we can to help the destitute people over there.”
The holiday season will, unfortunately, eventually come to a close. But that doesn’t mean that Wright has any plans of closing down Collective Change’s holiday efforts.
“After Christmas Break, we’d really like to begin collecting coats to donate to the Embry Rucker Shelter,” Wright said, “although it’s only a goal at this point, this is something we’d really like to do.”
Wright’s passion for helping others did not develop suddenly, but rather evolved over time with help from her mother.
“My mom has always donecharity work through her company and I kind of learned from her,” Wright commented. “With her, I’ve done volunteer work with Reston Interfaith [regarding] their efforts to prevent homelessness. Mostly, however, I have found my inspiration from really great family and friends who teach me that I’m a really lucky person. I feel like everyone deserves to be as lucky as me, and so it kind of seems natural to do whatever little bit I can.”
Wright is eager to spread her love of charity work to other members of Oakton’s community. However she and Collective Change are limited by Fairfax County policies on promoting non-school organizations. Nonetheless, students can become involved through joining Collective Change’s Facebook page, which sends frequent updates to its members about projects the organization is working on.
“During the holidays, charities become more of a visible thing,” Wright said, “and so people begin giving more. This is a great period to get involved or kick start a charity.”
Collective Change has certainly hit a stride in this holiday season – with performances and book drives and coat collections, Wright’s organization is really doing its little bit of good this holiday season, although it’s obvious that Collective Change will continue on its path of helping others well beyond this holiday season
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