As Anahita Karamloo (11) and Caroline Clyde (11) stepped forward on the field of Petco Park, prepared to receive an award in front of thousands of people, they couldn’t help feeling a sense of pride at what their club had accomplished. The RISE club and nonprofit, which advocates for domestic violence awareness, received the Tony Gwynn Community All-Star Award, April 28. The award recognizes students ages 13-18 who have made a positive impact on San Diego. Of around 70 applicants, nine were awarded, including Clyde and Karamloo. They received $5,000 for their contributions to the community through events such as food drives.
Clyde said the money they raise in fundraisers and the money from the award go to many different things to help support RISE and spread publicity.
“We are a finance club inside of school, but all the money is for the nonprofit outside of school,” Clyde said. “We are a nonprofit, so this will be going towards supplies that we need to raise awareness, like our events that we’ll be hosting, our fundraisers, stuff that we need for our farmers’ market, education talks, and care packages.”
Clyde and Karamloo formed the idea for the RISE nonprofit over a year ago, and they have since worked tirelessly to get it started, bring it to Westview as a club, and spread awareness about domestic violence while taking away the stigma associated with it.
“One of the biggest [reasons] that we wanted to start this as students is because it’s a really common theme: domestic violence [towards] high school [students] specifically,” Clyde said. “It’s not talked about because it’s a really deep, sensitive topic, and a lot of women and children don’t know how to advocate for themselves because there’s backlash in almost every scenario, so having that foundation where there’s support and where students can feel like they can go [is important].”
To spread awareness to the community and to Westview, RISE hosts many events outside of school, encouraging club members to join the nonprofit and help. They are also in touch with ASB about school-wide spirit days, such as the Purple Out spirit day in October.
“Last May is when we started building our partnerships and started communicating to brands,” Clyde said. “We host food drives, [volunteer at] food kitchens, and make care packages for people out of their homes due to domestic violence.”
Clyde added that making a difference at Westview is the most important part of forming RISE, and through Karamloo’s idea, they have started making that difference.
“[Karamloo] came to me and said, I want to make this club and have people care about it, and we want actual change,” Clyde said. “We want to educate, empower, and support people in school, but also outside of school. We want to actually help people, and since we know people who have suffered from it, we want to empower them because we care about the people we love.”
RISE is partnered with License to Freedom, which connects the nonprofit members to shelters for domestic violence victims.
“We donate the money to help their shelters, and then the stuff that we make, like our care packages, we’ll be donating to them,” Karamloo said.
To get publicity for the club, the pair has been talking to brands, such as Kendra Scott and iHeart Media for potential partnerships. Karamloo attributes winning the awards and most of their success to this.
“We’re really pushing,” Karamloo said. “We didn’t start that long ago, and the only reason we were able to get as far as we are now is because we just had no shame. RISE is definitely an example that students can make a change. It’s something that shows that you can do something, and the biggest thing is just to start.”
License to Freedom has given Karamloo and Clyde the opportunity to interact with victims in their shelters and get to know them better while providing support for them.
“I talked to a few victims at License to Freedom in the shelters, and hearing what they were going through, that really changed my mindset on things,” Karamloo said. “I learned to be more grateful for situations that I’m in and I feel like this whole experience helped with my emotional maturity too.”
Clyde said that RISE has helped her improve her communication and taught her to stand up for her ideas, knowing that anyone can make things happen.
“This is where entrepreneurs start making things, taking the initiative,” Clyde said. “You can’t just sit back and wait for the right person to come give me that opportunity; you’ve got to make that for yourself. It just proves how much students can make a change. We really want to make that huge impact. It’s a lot of hard work, but seeing it pay off and seeing that change, it’s really rewarding. At the end of the day, we just want to create a community where survivors feel supported and people feel empowered to make a difference.”
