Abby Thomas was a high school sophomore when the COVID-19 pandemic began, turning her world — and everyone else’s — upside down.<\/p>\n
Schools, workplaces and businesses\u00a0shuttered. Traffic, except for essential workers and those going out for necessities or emergency\u00a0care, came to a screeching halt.<\/p>\n
So did the then-15-year-old Fowlerville girl’s ability to learn how to drive. She was required to have hours behind the wheel before getting her license. But when the pandemic hit, she didn’t have anywhere to go. The\u00a0little driving she did\u00a0there were no\u00a0cars on the road to get that necessary\u00a0feel for traffic.<\/p>\n In April 2020, Abby\u00a0began volunteering twice a week at The Torch<\/a>, a non-profit food and catering truck in her hometown that delivered\u00a0food to people in need.\u00a0She and her mom handed out food and groceries, then boxed up food for deliveries in and around Livingston County for those\u00a0who didn’t have vehicles, who couldn’t\u00a0get to the food truck during a designated time or were in quarantine with the virus.<\/p>\n\n Her mom, Jill, a teacher, offered\u00a0a suggestion: Abby\u00a0could deliver food, learn\u00a0how to drive and earn her driving hours at the same time.<\/p>\n So Abby\u00a0hit the road in\u00a0her gray Jeep Renegade named Norman;\u00a0her mom, in the passenger seat. She bopped all over the county,\u00a0towards Flint and Linden in Genesee County, and the Lansing area. She drove on expressways and back roads, sloshed\u00a0through mud and bumped along unpaved\u00a0rural areas.<\/p>\n\n More:<\/strong>Death of Grosse Pointe Woods man haunted Oprah Winfrey, inspired documentary<\/a><\/p>\n While gaining necessary driving experience, Abby provided a critical lifeline to people\u00a0— dropping\u00a0off food, sometimes leaving the parcels on porches,\u00a0waving\u00a0from her car\u00a0and wishing folks\u00a0a good day.<\/p>\n A simple act during a difficult time.<\/p>\n “It worked out perfectly,” said the 17-year-old Fowlerville High senior who plans to attend Spring Arbor University near\u00a0Jackson, majoring\u00a0in criminal justice.<\/p>\n\n “I volunteer all the time\u00a0and I love it. I love volunteering,” said Abby, who in December 2020 volunteered\u00a0with The Giving Barn Community Outreach<\/a> to deliver Christmas presents to families. “I think that as I continue to grow\u00a0throughout the rest of my life, I will always try to look for the good in every situation and realize that there are still good humans in this world, even if the world may seem a little uncertain.”\u00a0<\/p>\n “People were really scared at that time,” said Rhonda Callahan, co-founder of The Torch, who with a few others were so busy cooking\u00a0they couldn’t have provided the important service without volunteers\u00a0such as Abby and her mom. The group gave away thousands of pounds of food and hundreds of meals a week.<\/p>\n “It’s awesome, especially when a teenager steps up.”<\/p>\n More:<\/strong>Art exhibit inside Sparrow Hospital shows caregivers’ reflections of COVID-19 pandemic<\/a><\/p>\n More:<\/strong>COVID-19 cases infecting teens traced back to a Kalamazoo high school prom<\/a><\/p>\n Abby and several other metro Detroit teens received $5,000 scholarships Thursday from Community Choice Credit Union for their contributions, with two other high school seniors receiving recognition for their work during the pandemic.<\/p>\n Abby, Shlok Patel of Rockwood and Sanya Gupta of Rochester Hills received the scholarships, money that will be used to help cover tuition or housing at college.<\/p>\n They are among 15 high school seniors who received\u00a0$5,000 scholarships. Six\u00a0others earned $2,500 scholarships for continuing education and four more received $2,500 to pursue a skilled trade.<\/p>\n \u201cThe future of Michigan is in good hands,” said Jeremy Cybulski, community engagement manager at Community Choice Credit Union.<\/p>\n Before the pandemic, Shlok Patel was a volunteer at Beaumont Hospital\u00a0Trenton, pushing wheelchairs, checking on patients and guiding visitors.<\/p>\n Once the pandemic hit, the Rockwood teen stopped that volunteer work. COVID-19, the 18-year-old Carlson High senior said, halted and changed everyone’s lives.<\/p>\n When COVID-19 vaccines came out, Shlok said he thought that was the outlet toresume a little bit of\u00a0normal life. Early last year, he volunteered at a mass vaccination clinic in Wayne County, helping with registration and forms.<\/p>\n More:<\/strong>Coronavirus Watch: They had a pact<\/a><\/p>\n The experience made him realize people in his Downriver community didn’t have as much access to vaccine clinics close to their homes or were on long waiting lists to get a shot.<\/p>\n Shlok told his mom, Hema, a pharmacist, that he wondered if there could be a vaccine clinic at his school to help friends and family around him. He didn’t think it would be allowed. But it was. And plans for the clinic got underway.<\/p>\n Shlok said he and his identical twin brother Shivam took the role of co-coordinators and got volunteers from the school’s National Honor Society — the first time Shlok said he had taken on that kind of leadership responsibility.<\/p>\n About 600 people came through the clinics, he said, getting first and then second doses of vaccine.<\/p>\n He started the project because he could see people were \u00a0too scared to go out because they weren’t yet vaccinated. And he could see the families’ relief after they were.<\/p>\n “I didn’t really realize I was making that big of an impact on my community as I was,” said Shlok, who plans to attend the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and study pharmacy. “It was so heartwarming …\u00a0It was like something that I had never felt before.”<\/p>\n More:<\/strong>Birth of daughter brings healing to mom who had COVID-19, twins at start of pandemic<\/a><\/p>\n\n More:<\/strong>Thousands of COVID-19 treatments sit unused in Michigan. Doctors aren’t prescribing them<\/a><\/p>\n Sanya Gupta became aware of huge learning gaps at the start of the pandemic when schools closed, forcing kids to stay\u00a0home and\u00a0into some type of online\u00a0learning.<\/p>\n Many struggled. As a high schooler, Sanya wondered how that had an impact on younger children, who need social and emotional learning and being around their\u00a0peers in person for their growth and development.<\/p>\n Sanya, now 17 and a Rochester High\u00a0senior, reached out to former elementary and middle school teachers to inquire about what they were noticing. They reported seeing learning gaps\u00a0and Sanya asked if there was anything she could do to help.<\/p>\n She started tutoring. She told her friends, who agreed to tutor, too.<\/p>\n That’s when Sanya sparked the idea to create\u00a0a free, online program where students volunteer to be\u00a0paired with other students who need tutoring. The project\u00a0was to\u00a0make it easier for teachers, so they didn’t have to find individual tutoring for each student, and the young people could have peer-to-peer learning.<\/p>\n Thus, Rebuild Rochester<\/a>\u00a0was born.<\/p>\n Sanya continued to recruit tutors and develop and structure\u00a0the\u00a0non-profit, which took on\u00a0additional projects\u00a0such as collecting cans and bottles\u00a0with more than $500 going to a fund for front-line health care workers.<\/p>\n The tutoring project started off Rochester-based, but has since taken off.<\/p>\n “We’re over 1,000 students now. We’re international,” said Sanya, who plans to attend the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to earn a degree in business administration.<\/p>\n\n Sanya said she and others used their connections across the world\u00a0to expand the program and make a larger-scale impact. She would like to bring the idea\u00a0to the University of Michigan’s campus, too.<\/p>\n More:<\/strong>COVID-19 cases in Michigan expected to climb through May: What it means<\/a><\/p>\n The program is for elementary through high school students and much of the tutoring has been for\u00a0core subjects, such as reading and math. There also has been tutoring for science, language and even\u00a0playing the trumpet.<\/p>\n “Seeing that learning, your teaching, impacts a student is so rewarding,” Sanya\u00a0said. “And you can kind of see the impact that you’re making on the students\u00a0themselves — even through a screen. It’s\u00a0kind of cool.”<\/p>\n Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @challreporter.<\/em><\/p>\n Support local journalism. Subscribe to the Free Press<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Abby](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2022\/05\/05\/PDTF\/a0c0979b-fdb4-42f1-af44-78c4ba15c98f-IMG_0603.jpg?width=660&height=499&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp\")
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‘Big impact on my community’<\/h2>\n
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![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2022\/05\/05\/PDTF\/da952fcd-c5ab-4372-bccf-6851b4aafcaf-teen_vax_clinic.jpg?width=660&height=495&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp\")
![\"Shlok](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2022\/05\/05\/PDTF\/bb043bd1-014d-4a5a-a7d0-7c51a1fbb03f-teen_vax_clinic_and_family.jpg?width=660&height=495&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp\")
‘No limitation to what we teach’<\/h2>\n
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