“We never went into this project thinking about college.”

Gayathri Pillai: “People always think that when you are starting a nonprofit organization in high school, that it’s most likely another filler for college resumes, and that you wouldn’t continue it after graduation. But for me and my friend, we really just wanted to start a nonprofit that would make a change regardless if the impact is big or small. The goal was always to provide for those in need, especially during this time. I struggled because I didn’t know who specifically we’d be helping, but eventually, it was decided that our organization “Eyes of Humanity”, would reach, provide and help many different people. I think what makes our nonprofit special is that it’s not just trying to help one group of people. We hope to reach homeless people, children, rape victims, those in refugee camps and those without an education. The pandemic really opened my eyes because I saw how many people were struggling whether that’d be a small business, or not being able to afford basic necessities, and I guess that’s what inspired me and others to do something about it. Starting a nonprofit is definitely a lot harder than it looks, but with a lot of planning and brainstorming, we were eventually able to get it going. We are going one project at a time, and we do have a small team at the moment, but it’s definitely growing. We just completed our first project which was a fundraiser with the proceeds going towards the homeless people in San Francisco and it was a successful virtual fundraiser. We wanna grow our team as a family full of people who are dedicated to helping those in need. The goal is to go more globally once we’ve completed other projects.”