touching lives and making a difference these are ingrained in the minds and lives of students of sophias high school at high grounds from class vii every student is involved in at least one of several charitable projects where the school is deeply involved whats more commendable is that students bring in an element of fun into their activities throw in healthy competition and its one big happy family reaching out to make others happy too the aloysia project touches the lives of about 3540 students at the angels orphanage in shivajinagar every evening these orphans are brought to the sophia campus about 2530 volunteers from class xi and class xii stay back after classes to help them with their homework and studies they also coach them in sports or how to use computers the orphanage kids ranging from 3 years to 17 years are also part of the annual day and childrens day programmes at sophias a special sports day is also organized for them the school gives these children milk and refreshments every day and parents of sophiaites provide stationery uniforms and shoes once a year their enthusiasm to learn things and do well is amazing you end up learning more from them says class xi student anisha mascarenhas among the highexcitement events are the weekly tuck shops which are part of the interact clubs charitable activities a sense of competition takes over the students once a week a different class from class viii to class xii puts up tuck shops to sell food they make from cakes to burgers they have it all the proceeds usually around rs 20000 per week go to the interact club each class works hard to do better than the others from planning the menu to pricing to accounting its all done by the students says teacher geeta belliappa this programme has been held for several years and the funds raised have been used for various charities the latest being a house for prakashi a poor woman of vanikudi village near kanyakumari says teacher suman muralidhar shes from the fishing community we funded part of the construction as she is very poor and has a mentally challenged daughter as part of its outreach programme the school has tied up with matru home for the blind the students help convert textbooks into soft copies so that they can be converted into braille they also collect newspapers every month and give these to the visually handicapped so they can practise their braille some students stand in as scribes during job entrance tests theyre ambitious and even hope to become doctors and ias officers says another class xi student sakhi shetty says principal sr priscilla snd when students first go to meet mentally challenged children or to the orphanages there is some initial hesitation but soon they get so involved they find it difficult to leave they learn to appreciate the fact they have enough to give not just money but time