East Meadow High School senior Kiran Maharaj receives award from Nassau County District Attorney for her service

As a middle-school student, Kiran Maharaj wanted to be involved in school clubs, but ultimately shied away from them. Now, the incoming senior at East Meadow High School not only started her own, but received an award for her efforts.

Maharaj, 17, started the Red Cross Club in her high school at the beginning of last school year, and on June 27 she was recognized for all the good that the club has done with the SHIELD award from the Nassau County District Attorney’s office. The award is given annually in recognition of a student’s service, honesty, integrity, excellence, leadership and duty.

“I didn’t know that anything I’d been doing had been receiving this level of acknowledgement,” Maharaj said after receiving the award. “I was really surprised, but I was also really honored. It made me feel so good, and that’s how I knew that what I was doing was actually making an impact on the community around me.”

Even though last year was the club’s first, it had no shortage of activities with community benefit in mind. Together, Maharaj, as the president, along with 20 club members, went to work.

One of the first projects was sending little notes to kids in the hospital. During the winter, they held a fundraiser for the victims of Hurricane Ian. The club partnered with the Kiwanis Club of Bellmore Charitable Foundation Inc., raising $180. The funds were used to purchase gift cards and send them to the Sanibel Captiva Island Kiwanis Club in Florida.

They club members also made Valentine’s Day cards for those in the Bristal Assisted Living in East Meadow. Towards the end of the school year they hosted a blood drive through the New York Blood Center.

Their biggest project, though, was a relief efforts drive for the earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria. The drive exceeded anyone’s expectations, with hundreds of items donated by East Meadow students from Feb. 10 to 15 — ranging from coats and undergarments to toiletries. Everything filled a 15-foot U-Haul truck.

The donations were taken to the Turkish General Consulate in New York City and delivered to the victims via Turkish Airlines on Feb. 17.

“I really just wanted to do something that would give me a chance to create community service for other people and give back to the community in any way I could,” Maharaj said. “I didn’t really expect it to go this far and be as big and have us have the opportunity to do something as important as the Turkey drive. I really just wanted to do little things like send out care packages and Valentine’s Day notes. But when we got the opportunity to do the drive, I couldn’t pass it up.”

Maharaj said that she has always been the type of person who liked to take charge. She considers herself a perfectionist, so the club was a great way to execute something she had planned in her head.

“It was a little nerve-wracking and a little overwhelming because I was scared I wasn’t going to be good at it or people wouldn’t get the message,” she said. “As time went on, people were really supportive and everybody said that they liked it and enjoyed what we were doing and they liked being able to give back and it warms my heart.”

Maharaj made it a priority to stay busy and after the pandemic she knew she wanted to find areas that could provide her with a creative outlet. Apart from her own club, she’s also a member of three other clubs. She’s also in honors and Advanced Placement classes.

For college, she’s not too sure what path she wants to go, but she knows it will be something in liberal arts. She’s a movie buff and recently went to a New York Film Academy film camp.

For now, the rising senior is working on her AP class summer assignments and planning what she wants to do next year for her club. She wants to do another blood drive and do other collection drives.

“There’s nothing really as big that I’ve been able to come up with yet,” she said. “I want to do necessity bags with toiletries and stuff that we can donate to shelters — just little things that I think are really important and often get overlooked.”