During the beginning of STEM Week, which started on October 21, Haiti Solidarity hosted their first calculator drive. The drive aimed to provide solar-powered calculators to students in SOPUDEP, which is Los Altos High School’s sister school in Haiti. Members of Haiti Solidarity placed bins around the campus, primarily in math classrooms, for the collection of all sorts of calculators.

The drive lasted for the entire STEM week and ultimately netted 156 calculators, of which 125 were four-function, 30 were scientific and one was a graphing calculator. The majority of the calculators raised, which are four-function, will likely be distributed to the lower grades in SOPUDEP.

“Normally we just do the box money drives before we go in February and those are successful,” Civics teacher and Haiti Solidarity advisor, Seth Donnelly said. “But this is a very focused drive and the results are really pleasing to us.”

The club decided to raise calculators because the director of SOPUDEP, Rea Dol, contacted Haiti Solidarity and informed them that the SOPUDEP students needed calculators in order to tackle higher level math.

“We do follow their requests,” Donnelly said. “And it seems like a pretty practical thing that we could pick up.”

Next year, Haiti Solidarity might have a calculator drive again.

“I think so,” Donnelly said. “We’ll see what the needs are.”