"I can now smile proudly at myself when I look in the mirror."

By Ishanvi Mohapatra

All good things must come to an end. But that end is not here yet, and will not be here for the foreseeable future. As Chloe Wang and Linda Chen, the current Directors of Event Hosting, transition out of their leadership roles, we can expect to see a shift in the work of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization CTSA.

Over the last few years, the entire team has worked hard to raise money for free debate tournament admissions, speech contests, conferences, and cultural events for students across CT. Clearly, they were successful. By the end of the recent March Leaders of Tomorrow conference, over 1,500 students had attended events with over $12,000 to fund them. CTSA was built with a strong foundation of kindness, respect, hard work, and persistence. It isn't easy for teenagers to start such a nonprofit when the world is trained to doubt our abilities. We've raised money for period equity, brought students to events they may not have been able to afford otherwise, and most importantly, helped them feel needed. After the March conference where I filmed the event and interacted with various student community leaders and Rotarians, I, for the first time in a long time, looked at myself in the mirror and felt proud of myself. It truly is a precious feeling.

However, all those successes do not mean that we cannot improve.

The mission of CTSA is to make speaking opportunities more accessible for students across CT, and we hope to reach more underprivileged students through new advertising strategies and collaborations with other nonprofits who share a similar goal. We plan on doing more social action projects over the summer and into the next school year, along with more community events such as a Pride Month gathering in late June. Make sure to check the 'Events' page for blog posts about those events in the works and the page bar for new sign-ups.

We are currently deciding between an environmental project and one for those experiencing homelessness. If we move forward with the environmental project, we will gather a group of people, including you, if you choose, to travel around a few CT towns to pick up litter. If we move forward with the other potential project, CTSA members will conduct small clothing and food drives in neighborhoods, churches, parks, and clubs and bring all the donations to a public square in New Haven, ideally in front of the New Haven Free Public Library, and distribute them to the homeless. Again, we'll need volunteers to help do that, and will open up a form on the site when the time comes. A future project that we'd like to do later on is an art expression workshop for middle and high school students to harness their creativity and learn to express their beliefs. Finally, in the fall of next school year, we will host a free Networking workshop for CT student leaders to expand their passion projects and community service plans. If you want to work with CTSA or have suggestions for future events, please fill out our active contact form.

The future is very bright for us.

I hope you'll be here for it.