Action Collective: The New SIP Option for Seniors
Image Credits: Laura Saenz
The Sequoyah High School is offering seniors a new option for the Social Innovation Program (SIP) called the Action Collective. The students who joined are in the same group for the whole year. This new addition is a third option for seniors’ SIP journey, along with internships and impact projects from their junior year. The Action Collective program is focused on working with non-profit organizations; it’s like an internship but with a group of students and a variety of locations. In the fall, the Action Collective helped a non-profit volunteer-based animal sanctuary called Singer Sanctuary, which has around 45 animals. The work the group has been doing includes physical labor like taking care of the sanctuary and the animals, photographing animals, making Instagram posts about their work, and filming the work that the group does.
Spanish Teacher and Action Collective advisor Laura Saenz expressed that the Action Collective was made “to allow for multiple experiences, and in doing that, give students an opportunity to experience what it’s like to give back to the community, and also gain a multitude of skills that can equip them for their future careers.” Saenz is enjoying Action Collective so far, especially helping the animals. “It's incredibly rewarding, and personally, it brings me great joy to end the week knowing I've helped care for animals that might have otherwise suffered or lived an unfulfilling life,” Saenz said. “It's also been inspiring to see how engaged, responsible, and dedicated the students are in meeting the animals' needs and following through with our projects.”
Saenz shared a couple of ideas for places to take the Action Collective after Singer Sanctuary, explaining “one of them is with an organization that does the composting for the city of Los Angeles…the other idea that we are contemplating is with an organization that works with families that have an incarcerated member.” And indeed, after their work at Singer Sanctuary, the Action Collective participated in projects with the Garden School Foundation, a gardening-centered education program for elementary school students, and is currently engaging with Arlington Garden in Pasadena, a public garden that uses regenerative gardening techniques.
Marlow Cuseo ’25, a member of the Action Collective, was interested in the program for “the idea of working with multiple organizations, and not being just limited to one, like [with] an internship.” Cuseo has been tasked with getting footage at the sanctuary and creating Instagram posts to spotlight different animals. Cuseo has been doing some physical labor as well, including “cleaning out the pools for the ducks, cleaning out the bunnies’ litter boxes, and refilling supplies for the bunnies like hay.” Cuseo stated he enjoys working at the Singer Sanctuary; so far his only critique was that he wishes “it were an option to stay at Singer Sanctuary.” Cuseo appreciates the appeal of helping out multiple organizations through the program, but “helping animals is definitely one of my passions, so it’s possible that a future organization won’t be as exciting to me, but I also think it’s exciting to get to do multiple things.”
Sam Almo-Milkin ’25, another member of the Action Collective, joined the program because he was curious about what it would be like and “wanted to be a part of something cool.” Aside from the work that the Action Collective is already doing, Almo-Milkin believes that Singer Sanctuary “just needs more volunteers and they need more funding and it’s hard for a non-profit with one person to get funding.” Like Cuseo, Almo-Milkin has been assigned to making Instagram posts about the animals. He was unhappy with this because he “wanted to spend less time on social media” and because he “thinks [he] could do more.” Nevertheless, he wasn’t ready to move on to the next place, noting, “I will miss it [Singer Sanctuary], so much that I’m trying to stay there permanently.” In the wake of the new year, however, Almo-Milkin believes that Action Collective has “made it through its ‘honeymoon’ period and through its ‘growing pains’” and shared that he feels he is “making a tangible impact.”
The members and facilitators who shared about their journey as part of the Action Collective SIP team have been doing great work and seem to enjoy partaking. Props to the students who tried out this new option as their senior SIP journey!
Image Credits: Laura Saenz