Hands of Hope spreads beyond Hopkins students

When Hopkins senior Aleesha Shaik heard about the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting in December, she wanted to send support for the people of Newtown, Conn. The Sunday morning after the tragedy, her project,  Hands of Hope, was born.

The task was simple: Shaik asked her friends to make an outline of their hands with a message to Newtown in the middle. Her project, which began as an effort between Shaik and her friends to show support for those affected by the tragedy, eventually spread to all Hopkins students, and ultimately to other schools, universities, and states.

Shaik had read in the news about other efforts of support for the members of the Newtown community, such as people donating food and money, but she had her own ideas for how to help.

“That wasn’t the type of thing they needed,” Shaik said. “At the time, [Newtown] needed moral support.”

Shaik developed the idea of designing the hands because, to her, they represented a chain of support, a way of linking people together.

“We are all holding hands [and] supporting one another,” Shaik said. “No matter what happens, it’s a chain of hands. You can’t break it.”

Shaik began her project by asking her friends to participate. She then asked the Hindu Student Council to join in her efforts by making hands during the Sunday prayer. She also placed a box in Charles Street Market for students to drop off their hands.

Within 24 hours of creating a Facebook event for her cause, Shaik’s team of volunteers willing to join her cause had swelled. Students invited their friends, who in turn invited other friends. Shaik was thrilled with the amount of help her peers were willing to give.

“I was very impressed with the way Hopkins students showed solidarity and came together to show that they were thinking about Newtown,” Shaik said.

She also realized that people beyond Hopkins were interested and thus opened up the event to the public. When she heard that Rutgers University students planned to make cards for Newtown, she contacted the organizer there to combine their efforts. Rutgers ended up having Hands of Hope workshops in their student centers, where the organizers provided supplies for students to make hands.

Friends from Shaik’s hometown, Plainsboro, N.J., also wanted to create hands. The Hands of Hope project quickly spread to various elementary schools, high schools and other groups who similarly wanted to send support to Newtown.

To consolidate these efforts, Shaik set up a mailbox at the Mattin Center to receive all the hands. She also contacted the SGA, who sent out emails about Hands of Hope to all Hopkins students, and informed students of her project through the Daily Announcements.

Shaik originally wanted to send the hands to Newtown before she left for winter break. As the hands were being sent in from around the country, however, she decided to wait until after the holidays to deliver them.

Although many of the centers, churches, and groups in Newtown were no longer accepting packages by the time Shaik returned from winter break, she did not give up. Shaik eventually found a municipal center in Newtown that was still accepting packages.

A few weeks ago, she finally delivered the hands of hope for Newtown. The entire project was ultimately a long chain made up of more than a thousand hands and weighing about six pounds.

Shaik is grateful to have been able to show her support for such a worthwhile cause.

“I just wanted to thank everyone who made a hand and everyone who helped me put together the chain as well as my roommates who never complained about the huge pile of hands in our living room,” she said.

After Shaik sent the chain of hands, her younger sister researched Shaik’s efforts on Google. She searched “Hands of Hope” and found that many other people had also done a “Hands of Hope” project. Even the high schoolers in Newtown had made hands for the elementary school students.

Shaik plans on continuing efforts like these in the future. At the end of last semester, she decided to take things a step further by creating Johns Hopkins University’s World Health Council.

She plans to use the club to raise awareness about other issues in the U.S. She hopes the club will serve as a foundation for inspiring others to take action. Shaik believes that reaching the community in this way will allow for a greater potential for outreach.

“Every bit [of effort] counts,” she said.

Among her plans for the new club is an announcement campaign that will send out a weekly message to the student body about an important global event.

Furthermore she hopes to create a World Health Council Fair, in which she would like for all of Hopkins’ diverse groups to come together and work for a common goal.

The success of her Hands of Hope project has inspired Shaik to continue to take action when it comes to issues that are important to her.

“Don’t be afraid to take action,” Shaik advised.  “If something means a lot to you, do something about it. Don’t wait for [someone] to do it for you.”