As of April 2022, more than 3,000 children are displaced in the foster care system in the Dallas area, and this number continues to grow across the nation. After learning about the number of at-risk youth within their community, two juniors committed themselves to providing support and resources for these vulnerable children.
Ranveer Jadhav and Rishab Kattimani founded Seeking Solace, a nonprofit organization that aims to aid orphaned children through a multitude of solutions, from greater food quality to better education. They held their first interest meeting on Oct. 22.
Despite the growing number of orphanages in the Dallas school area, Jadhav noticed a significant lack of support for these institutions, which inspired him and Kattimani to initiate a community effort to support them.
“To support or combat these issues, we’re actually going to host drives where students of Rockhill can donate sports gear, food, canned food, or clothing to us,” Jadhav said. “We can actually act as middlemen from Rock Hill to the local orphanages and basically just give to the community.”
Junior Ishan Nadaf, a Seeking Solace volunteer, believes the organization can provide a solid foundation that many vulnerable youth lack.
“I think the organization has a really good foundation to start,” Nadaf said. “There’s a lot of orphanages in the area, and we can make a lot of connections. And in terms of students, I bet there’s a couple of people here who are orphans themselves and can feel the pain, but sometimes you just got to have empathy and do something good for the community.”
Freshman Yazat Sinha, another Seeking Solace volunteer, shares that Seeking Solace benefits both the volunteers and the at-risk community they serve. He believes that the nonprofit gives the student organization an opportunity to be an active part of the community.
“It will also help a lot of orphanages because they could always use some extra hands,” Sinha said. “They don’t always get proper funding and not all orphanages get what they need, so we could obviously help out with that.”
When it comes to long-term goals, the Jadhav and Kattimani hope the nonprofit can expand to numerous other orphanages nationwide.
“Right now, we’re starting in Dallas and just helping the children in Dallas,” Kattimani said. “But of course, we want to make a global impact. So eventually, as we get more funds and as we grow as an organization, we’re going to want to go to even more orphanages around the world.”
Kattimani and Jadhav have faced many challenges on the road to becoming an established nonprofit.
“One challenge specifically that we faced was actually approaching these orphanages and asking for collaboration between us because a lot of times, maybe their technology is not up to standard and they don’t have emails or they don’t respond to our calls, things like that,” Kattimani said. “But of course, we just continue to try.”
One of the biggest challenges orphans face is the lack of direct support from even a few significant people in their lives. Sinha believes that while larger organizations often provide assistance to at-risk youth, it does not have to be that way.
“Oftentimes they need to know that there’s a specific person that cares about them, that there is this person in their life for them,” Sinha said. “And they don’t often have that.”
In the future, to further the growth of Seeking Solace and amplify their impact, Jadhav and Kattimani plan to pass on their roles to future leaders.
“We would most likely pass on the title of president or co-president to other capable leaders,” Kattimani said. “And hopefully, we will have a lot of impact throughout America by that time.”
