On Friday, March 18th at 6:30 pm, Warde’s Humanity Now club will be hosting a special event in partnership with Starfish International to aid its mission of providing Gambian girls with a world-class education. The event serves as a valuable opportunity to raise money, and to do that, it welcomes students to take to the courts. For just five dollars, students can enter a spikeball tournament in the large gym, and the funds generated will be donated to Starfish International. While students are welcome to play casually, prizes will be available for winners. All are welcome and encouraged to attend.
Humanity Now is a club dedicated to raising international awareness of the needs of refugees and developing projects that benefit populations in need in different parts of the world. Currently, the Warde chapter of the Humanity Now club is working with Starfish International, an organization committed to providing girls from The Gambia—a country in West Africa—with better education and creating opportunities for entrepreneurial photography careers. Starfish International’s website promotes that every contributor to the cause is “motivated by the end goal of service to humanity and challenged to find effective ways of infusing service to others into their daily work.” As a direct result of the students, teachers, administrators, and volunteers around the world supporting Starfish International’s endeavors, more and more Gambian girls have gained a voice in their community that they are often denied.
In past years, Sana Sarr has spoken at Fairfield Warde to represent Starfish International and will do so again this year in F39 on March 9th during the Club Period (1:45 pm – 2:10 pm). Mr. Sarr is from The Gambia—as well as his sister, Mam-Yassin Sarr, who is the co-founder and director of Starfish International—and now resides in Connecticut. Anyone, whether a part of the Humanity Now club or not, is welcome to stop by and listen in. His presentation is a great opportunity for students to understand the importance of the Humanity Now club’s work and prepare for the fundraiser on March 18th.
In addition to Mr. Sarr, Fatoumata Jaiteh, the Program Director at Starfish International, will be coordinating engagement between Starfish and Warde. Through a Google Meet or Zoom call, Ms. Jaiteh may be able to connect the Humanity Now chapter at Warde with the chapter in Natick, Massachusetts, a club that has tremendous accomplishments under its belt. The collaboration aims to spark new ideas to support The Gambia and Starfish International.
If you would like to learn more about Starfish International or continue to donate to the organization after the fundraiser, please visit https://starfishinternational.org and follow @starfishintl on Instagram and @StarfishIntl on Twitter. If you feel inspired to join the Humanity Now club, we would love to have you! We meet during the Wednesday activity periods in F39, also known as Mr. Pollex’s room in upper Fitts. The Google Classroom code is w6moasp and the Instagram handle is @fairfieldwardehumanitynow. In case the values of philanthropy and humanitarianism aren’t incentive enough, at every meeting, Dunkin’ Donuts munchkins are a guarantee.
Humanity Now looks forward to the Warde student body’s help in supporting this important cause.