Wilderness Oak Elementary School fifth-grader Adya Tripathi can’t get enough of providing hope to others. She makes and donates “hope kits” to people with cancer. She and her brother Siddharth Tripathi got the idea a few years ago when their mother was battling cancer.
“My mom needed a lot of hope and support,” said Adya. “We have a lot of support at Wilderness Oak. It really gives me satisfaction with people see them.”
The hope kits are relatively simple but offer a lot of hope.
Each kit contains a few helpful things like eyeliner and hand-knitted caps for patients dealing with hair loss. She also includes a pop-it fidget toy to help with stress. But the crux of the Hope kit is a bag of seemingly ordinary objects.
There is a rubber band to remind the person to keep bouncing back and stay flexible, a paper candle to remind them to look for the light in the darkness, an eraser to remind them that mistakes can be erased and other great reminders.
So far, Adya has donated hundreds of kits to ThriveWell, a local non-profit that helps cancer patients. She also makes kits when she hears someone at school is battling cancer or has a family member who is diagnosed. She plans to make even more hope kits over spring break to deliver to MD Anderson.
Adya is spreading hope #theNEISDway
