Vernon Hills High School’s DARING mission pushes students to extend their learning and impact beyond the walls of our campus and classroom. A prime example of this willingness to expand horizons comes from a senior student, Sid-dharth Avula, with the start of his community project, The Kit Outreach.

Avula runs soccer practices for young athletes in the community, then takes the money from the registration fee, and donations, to create hygiene kits for local homeless and help centers in the area. TSP sat down with Avula to learn more about his project.

TSP: What is The Kit Outreach Program?

Avula: “Initially, it started as a soccer camp. I wanted to provide an opportunity for young kids and athletes in my community [to learn soccer]… and while I was planning … I came across an article that detailed the increasing hygiene poverty in Chicagoland, and I thought, ‘Why don’t I shift my focus from just donating the revenue from my soccer camp to any philanthropic organization, to forming a whole organization on my own to solve hygiene poverty [by] using my  soccer camps as a funding source for that?’”

TSP: What do you think will be the long-term impacts of the project?

Avula: “I think long-term, the goal is to reduce the overall rates of deaths due to diseases that come from a lack of hygiene [in the Chicagoland area].”

TSP: How will this project continue when you go to college next year?

Avula: “My plan … is to start different chapters in schools and hopefully ours as well. I’m also coordinat-ing with different underclassmen who are going to help me both run the soccer camps locally and distribute the hygiene products in Chicagoland.”

TSP: What do you hope people will take away from this experience?

Avula: “Our number one goal is to increase hygiene equity within the area and make sure that people have access to [basic hygiene], because [hygiene] should be a right and not a privilege. Our second goal that goes into The Kit Outreach is fostering inclusivity within our soccer camps and making sure that young athletes in our community have a good upbringing within the soccer community.”

TSP: What would you say to others inspired by your story who want to start something of their own?

Avula: “The first step in starting something of your own is identifying a need that’s very important [in your community], and then planning how you want to solve that need most efficiently, also making sure that it’s something that you enjoy doing.”