Burlingame offers a variety of clubs for students to stay involved in the school community. Even during online school, clubs of all kinds are finding ways to connect with students. 

One service club at Burlingame is the Girl Up Club, which was started last spring by senior and club president, Anna Porto. Girl Up is an organization that helps empower girls all over the world by advancing their skills, rights and opportunities.

Porto believes that Burlingame needed a club more focused on women empowerment and therefore decided to begin this club. 

“I know that we already have some service clubs, but nothing like Girl Up, which is focused only on providing and giving adolescent girls in developing countries an equal chance on important issues like education, health and social opportunities,” Porto said.

Due to online school, the club is operating monthly through Zoom with 10 members currently participating. “Now with COVID, we have switched to online and we’re mostly just collectively coming up with ideas on how to proceed with our plans,” Shaira Vohra, the vice president of the club said.

Porto and other members are still figuring out ideas for fundraisers to support a variety of issues and organizations. One of the organizations they are considering donating to is the SchoolCycle foundation which provides bicycles to girls to help them access education and stay in school.

“Through the fundraisers we do, we can actually donate the money, which is invested directly into girls without basic resources and learning experiences in these developing countries such as Uganda,” Porto said.

Part of the money collected by the GirlUp organization also goes to specific causes such as providing a village in Guatemala with school supplies, providing a scholarship to a refugee living in Ethiopia and educating girls in a village in Ethiopia.

Throughout the last meetings, they’ve already come up with possible fundraisers ideas such as holding bake sales and 5K runs. However, they are not able to hold these charity events at the moment due to the pandemic so instead they are more focused on helping girls within the community with workshops and mentorships. 

While the Girl Up club is still adjusting to the new digital climate, they plan to start taking action and donating as soon as possible.