For the 2023-2024 school year, the Associated Student Body [ASB] has approved 29 new clubs. The Accolade’s cub reporters from the beginning journalism class will report on each new group in alphabetical order. For the previous ones that have already been posted, be sure to go to the Feature section.
In the midst of her volunteering and community service experiences, junior Hannah Kim found joy in supporting the disabled and getting to know them through activities like arts and crafts and religious worship.
Finding inspiration from helping out at Fullerton’s Muldan Garden (also known in English as Watered Garden Mission), a Christian-based non-profit organization that befriends the disabled, Kim formed Christian Disability Awareness to spread those values to her own school.
“I got involved with Muldan Garden through church connections,” said Kim, who first started volunteering there in 2023. “My community service really inspired me, and it makes me really happy to support mentally challenged people.”
Proposed on Oct. 8 and approved by ASB on Oct. 23, Christian Disability Awareness has around 15-20 members; one of its main goals is to raise money to donate to Christian organizations that support those with autism and other mental disabilities, such as Anaheim’s Sa-Rang Community Church and Fullerton’s Grace Ministries International, said Kim, also the club’s president.
Kim leads this club alongside vice presidents juniors Jean Sunwoo and Anna Song.
“I hope that more people can join so that people realize that disabled people are just like us and to spread the gospel,” Sunwoo said.
Sunwoo shares Kim’s enthusiasm for helping the disabled from both of their experiences at Muldan Garden.
“We first volunteered [at Muldan Garden] because they give us community service hours, but then we became really close to a lot of the people there,” she said. “We realized that we love doing this, and it’s really fun [so] we decided, ‘Why not expand it [to Sunny Hills]?’”
Kim, Sunwoo and Song’s community service at Muldan Garden involves aiding those with autism or Down syndrome, ages 20-60, in activities such as arts and crafts.
“We would help people with physical disabilities,” Kim said. “It’s just that we don’t know many physically disabled individuals.”
Some of the students who joined this group said they did so because they wanted to gain experiences working with those who are mentally challenged.
“I want to gain good experiences and really just help the people that need it,” said junior Isaac Lee, whose community service experience has been limited to park cleanups. “I hope that they enjoy working with me as much as I enjoy working with them,.”
In the club’s second meeting on Friday, Dec. 8, members were given cards to write hopeful messages for the disabled, which Kim said she personally distributed to those at Muldan Garden on Christmas Day.
Junior Jayden Kim was among those who wrote on the cards.
“It felt good to do something that could bring holiday spirit to the people there,” said Jayden Kim, who learned about the club through one of the co-vice presidents and started attending meetings in October. “I wrote that God loves them, and I hope they can really feel that message,”
Hannah Kim said she plans on involving the club’s adviser, social science teacher Christopher Collodel, to help out at future fundraisers by sorting money.
“Our meetings will always be different — sometimes we will make crafts for disabled people, or we’ll discuss future events like fundraisers or donations and money raised,” the club president said.
The Christian Disability Awareness club meets twice a month at lunch in Room 184. For more information, contact Kim at [email protected] or Sunwoo at [email protected] or Song at [email protected].
