Every Thursday during FIT, in AP World History teacher Ms. Hedlund’s room, McCallum’s newest club, United Against Homelessness, meets. Junior Natalia Rivas-Micoud created the club this year to provide help to homeless people in Austin and raise more awareness about the issue. So far, the club has around 25 members who are currently working on putting together a food drive. They also created a website to help educate people about their cause and ways to help. Rivas-Micoud originally got the idea for the club from her work at a restaurant.
“I work at a restaurant and every night I see us throw away so much food and it is so sad to then go out on the street and see so many people who need it,” Rivas-Micoud said.
Rivas-Micoud brought this realization to her good friend and junior club vice president Esme West, who also noticed the same issue and agreed to help start the club.
“Natalia came to me with the idea of starting a club where we can do food drives and get donations to help people,” West said. “We’re close friends so I’ve heard this idea from her before and thought it would be a good idea for a club.”
Once she got some support from her friends, Rivas-Micoud went in search of a sponsor and official approval to start the club.
“First I had to find a sponsor which wasn’t too difficult because I’m really close with Ms. Hedlund,” Rivas-Micoud said. ”She’s a good person so she immediately agreed to help me start it and then I just had to talk to Mr. Baxa and get him to approve.”
Getting the club signed off on was the easier part for Rivas-Micoud, while finding members proved to be more difficult, according to West.
“I think being such a new club, getting people to join has been the greatest challenge.” West said. “A lot of people at the beginning were just our friends and then we put up posters and got in the newsletter to get more people to join.”
Junior Nytlie Herron joined the club when it first formed in support of Rivas-Micoud and the cause she’s advocating for.
“I joined because I’m really good friends with Natalia and she told me about it and I thought it was really great that she started a club for a really good cause,” Herron said.
Herron said she enjoys the new things the club has contributed to her school life since joining.
“I like that it has a lot of different people in it that I’ve never met before,” Herron said. “I feel like this club is very unique, no one at this school is doing anything like it and it also offers volunteer hours.”
Junior Remy Lilly, a recently joined member, agrees that the club contributes something special to the school.
“I joined because the club seemed really interesting,” Lilly said. “I went to one of the meetings and it was really impressive with how many ideas Natalia had already come up with so I knew that the club was going to be a really serious thing and we were going to try to make a difference.”
Lilly also appreciates the leadership displayed by Rivas-Micoud.
“Natalia has been great at leading it,” Lilly said. “Every meeting she is very prepared and it’s cool seeing all the things she wants us to do and different opportunities to help, so I’m excited to see how far we can take it within the next year considering it’s a very new club.”
Despite the praise, Rivas-Micoud faced some challenges organizing the club on her own.
“It’s my first time leading such a big group of people,” Rivas-Micoud said. “We are around 25 people right now, and so just learning how to split up the tasks between everyone is hard but we are doing pretty good right now.”
The club’s first big project is a food drive for Thanksgiving. Members will place donation boxes for nonperishable items around the city and then donate whatever food they collect to a local homeless shelter. West believes the food drive is a good first goal for the new club.
“We just want to help as many people as possible,” West said. “We have our first food drive and I think setting short term goals is nice until we can get more funding and create a bigger project.”
According to Rivas-Micoud, the club is also hoping to do more hands-on volunteering at local shelters.
“We are planning to go into a homeless shelter for refugees and immigrants later this November and December where we will get to meet some of the residents and get to volunteer directly with them and help them out.” Rivas-Micoud said.
Looking to the future, Rivas-Micoud aims for the club to not only help people directly but educate people on the struggles faced by homeless people.
“Our bigger goal is to spread awareness and educate people about how they can help individually and make a longer lasting impact.” Rivas-Micoud said.
The Mac United Against Homelessness club continues to meet in Ms. Hedlund’s room every Thursday during FIT to work towards their future goals and support their cause.