Stella Eliopoulos is a high achiever. She’s an honor roll student at Medford High School and a member of the National Honor Society. She has rowed for three seasons on the Mustangs’ crew team, swam for a season and played on the Jayvee soccer team. Oh, in her spare time, she’s the principal violist in the Tufts Youth Philharmonic Orchestra!!! Stella is also a published poet AND is a Boston Globe award winning writer! There’s more. She is a member of the school’s Center for Citizenship and Social Responsibility, CSSR for short.
Oh! Since she’s a senior, there’s also the college application process that is, “ahem”, a tad bit time consuming! She has applied for “Early Decision” at Yale University! They’d be lucky to have her!
“Let’s go, Dad!”
Stella, though, knows that people in desperate need are important, too. After the recent devastation in Houston from Hurricane Harvey, she felt the need to help. She’d made a friend from Houston last summer while at The School of The New York Times Summer Academy in New York City. They kept in touch after camp ended, talking about the excitement of senior year, their activities, their college applications and their lives, in general. When her friend texted pictures of the destruction in Houston and told her what she and her family and friends were going through, Stella had a personal connection. She acted swiftly.
Stella organized a drive at school collecting clothing, toiletries and other basic items necessary for day-to-day living. She collected a truckload full of items to send to those in need in Houston. The problem she ran into, though, was one that faced many well intentioned folks. How to get it to Houston. Numerous non-profits were collecting items and raising money. Stella had a very difficult time finding transportation for the goods, which also happened to be quite costly to ship.
When it looked like her club wasn’t going to be able to get the goods to the needy families in Houston, Stella and her Dad, Steve, put their thinking caps on. They said “Let’s rent a U-Haul truck, drive the items down to Houston and hand deliver the goods!”
Stella ready to head to Houston!
That’s exactly what they did. The trip cost over almost $2,500. Stella will try and defray the costs she and her Dad absorbed by doing some local fundraising.
Click on her video, below, to see her outstanding story of kindness and perseverance and then read her blog!