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Krish Ghosalkar
Troy
Hero Story
Krish has volunteered for Key2Finesse, a student-run nonprofit dedicated to supporting local charities in the community and creating the leaders of tomorrow, since 2018 and has dedicated 530 hours of his time.
Krish began his involvement with the non-profit Key2Finesse at the age of 10 through his sister who co-founded it in 2015. Since then, Krish has observed their efforts to provide platforms for students to demonstrate their writing and public speaking skills, while giving back to noble causes in their community. Witnessing the passion with which the two co-founders ran their organization, Krish carried it forward when he officially joined the team in 2018. After volunteering for the organization and raising funds for Easterseals, a mental health non-profit that provides peer-to-peer workshops to struggling young adults, Krish joined the Key2Finesse Board of 2019, a team of motivated individuals that dedicated themselves to leading the organization’s work.
In 2020, Key2Finesse tackled organ donation and supported the Gift of Life Foundation. When the pandemic hit, Krish strongly supported the continuation of their fundraising through online means. In these unprecedented times, Krish worked with the rest of the team to adapt to meeting over Zoom and preparing to host an online fundraiser. Since fundraising endeavors were already impaired due to the ongoing national crisis, he stepped up and worked very hard to advocate for organ donation awareness– recognizing that COVID-19 had made organ donation even more important. After attending a presentation from Gift of Life’s representatives and an organ transplant recipient, Krish was extremely inspired to talk to his friends about organ donation. After learning that many of his friends believed in the common myths, Krish explained that these myths are misperceptions that have largely contributed to the organ donor shortage and asserted that registering is a responsibility that people must recognize. Through this, he was able to persuade many of his uncertain friends to confidently join the Michigan Organ Donor Registry. The process of having these conversations with many of his friends allowed him to encourage many of his own volunteers to do the same. This instance of Krish’s personal efforts goes to show that he has not only worked to fundraise for the Gift of Life foundation but has also used his voice to create greater awareness about organ donation by engaging in public health education.
In addition, Krish has served as the treasurer of Key2Finesse since 2019. In response to the lockdown, he adapted the previous paper financial tracking system and created an online system to track all fundraising and expenses for Key2Finesse, where volunteers could track their own donations via Google Sheets. This dramatically increased the efficiency of financial management within the organization, helping this student group to successfully donate $75,198 to the Gift of Life Foundation and then $116,100 to Angels of Hope in 2021. In the future, his system will allow volunteers to uphold this organization and continue making an impact in the community.
In the last two years, Krish has helped to expand Key2Finesse’s efforts much beyond fundraising. Recognizing the need for students to learn from others, Krish helped to organize high school and career exploration symposiums over Zoom: these symposiums invited successful high schoolers, college students and professionals to share their journeys and advice to motivated students. This guided many students throughout their high school career and taught them how to tackle academic challenges and become involved with meaningful extracurricular activities. Considering the success of the symposiums, Krish has helped to recognize other issues such as the educational gap created in students’ learning during online schooling and the shortage of internship opportunities for many high school students. Thus, through conducting a virtual tutoring program for the last 2 years and organizing an internship event, Krish has helped students foster connections with Key2Finesse volunteers regarding their academic challengings. These virtual events have not only expanded Key2Finesse’s outreach to over 10 states and 5 countries but have also expanded the organization’s efforts to provide students with the tools needed to succeed.
After Krish helped host multiple informational events for the community, Key2Finesse has seen a large increase in its volunteer numbers. This has increased the size of the Key2Finesse Board as well, so Krish has worked to capitalize on the strengths of his team members to further the impact of Key2Finesse: Teams such as social media, finance, logistics and administration have been instituted to allow volunteers to make an impact by embracing their own talents. Krish has also learned how to lead this team by delegating smartly, encouraging other team members to express ideas and using assertion when needed. This has inspired many other team members to engage greatly in current activities and introduce new ones that provide for the community in unique ways.
Finally, Krish has found it incredibly important to inspire authenticity in Key2Finesse’s volunteers – he has set aside time with many volunteers to ask them to self-evaluate their intentions of volunteering. As a result, has been able to bring out the best in the team and inspire passion in his fellow peers for community service. This strong spirit of volunteerism will spread throughout the team and have a lasting impact on the future of Key2Finesse.
Krish Ghosalkar
Troy
Hero Story
Krish has volunteered for Key2Finesse, a student-run nonprofit dedicated to supporting local charities in the community and creating the leaders of tomorrow, since 2018 and has dedicated 530 hours of his time.
Krish began his involvement with the non-profit Key2Finesse at the age of 10 through his sister who co-founded it in 2015. Since then, Krish has observed their efforts to provide platforms for students to demonstrate their writing and public speaking skills, while giving back to noble causes in their community. Witnessing the passion with which the two co-founders ran their organization, Krish carried it forward when he officially joined the team in 2018. After volunteering for the organization and raising funds for Easterseals, a mental health non-profit that provides peer-to-peer workshops to struggling young adults, Krish joined the Key2Finesse Board of 2019, a team of motivated individuals that dedicated themselves to leading the organization’s work.
In 2020, Key2Finesse tackled organ donation and supported the Gift of Life Foundation. When the pandemic hit, Krish strongly supported the continuation of their fundraising through online means. In these unprecedented times, Krish worked with the rest of the team to adapt to meeting over Zoom and preparing to host an online fundraiser. Since fundraising endeavors were already impaired due to the ongoing national crisis, he stepped up and worked very hard to advocate for organ donation awareness– recognizing that COVID-19 had made organ donation even more important. After attending a presentation from Gift of Life’s representatives and an organ transplant recipient, Krish was extremely inspired to talk to his friends about organ donation. After learning that many of his friends believed in the common myths, Krish explained that these myths are misperceptions that have largely contributed to the organ donor shortage and asserted that registering is a responsibility that people must recognize. Through this, he was able to persuade many of his uncertain friends to confidently join the Michigan Organ Donor Registry. The process of having these conversations with many of his friends allowed him to encourage many of his own volunteers to do the same. This instance of Krish’s personal efforts goes to show that he has not only worked to fundraise for the Gift of Life foundation but has also used his voice to create greater awareness about organ donation by engaging in public health education.
In addition, Krish has served as the treasurer of Key2Finesse since 2019. In response to the lockdown, he adapted the previous paper financial tracking system and created an online system to track all fundraising and expenses for Key2Finesse, where volunteers could track their own donations via Google Sheets. This dramatically increased the efficiency of financial management within the organization, helping this student group to successfully donate $75,198 to the Gift of Life Foundation and then $116,100 to Angels of Hope in 2021. In the future, his system will allow volunteers to uphold this organization and continue making an impact in the community.
In the last two years, Krish has helped to expand Key2Finesse’s efforts much beyond fundraising. Recognizing the need for students to learn from others, Krish helped to organize high school and career exploration symposiums over Zoom: these symposiums invited successful high schoolers, college students and professionals to share their journeys and advice to motivated students. This guided many students throughout their high school career and taught them how to tackle academic challenges and become involved with meaningful extracurricular activities. Considering the success of the symposiums, Krish has helped to recognize other issues such as the educational gap created in students’ learning during online schooling and the shortage of internship opportunities for many high school students. Thus, through conducting a virtual tutoring program for the last 2 years and organizing an internship event, Krish has helped students foster connections with Key2Finesse volunteers regarding their academic challengings. These virtual events have not only expanded Key2Finesse’s outreach to over 10 states and 5 countries but have also expanded the organization’s efforts to provide students with the tools needed to succeed.
After Krish helped host multiple informational events for the community, Key2Finesse has seen a large increase in its volunteer numbers. This has increased the size of the Key2Finesse Board as well, so Krish has worked to capitalize on the strengths of his team members to further the impact of Key2Finesse: Teams such as social media, finance, logistics and administration have been instituted to allow volunteers to make an impact by embracing their own talents. Krish has also learned how to lead this team by delegating smartly, encouraging other team members to express ideas and using assertion when needed. This has inspired many other team members to engage greatly in current activities and introduce new ones that provide for the community in unique ways.
Finally, Krish has found it incredibly important to inspire authenticity in Key2Finesse’s volunteers – he has set aside time with many volunteers to ask them to self-evaluate their intentions of volunteering. As a result, has been able to bring out the best in the team and inspire passion in his fellow peers for community service. This strong spirit of volunteerism will spread throughout the team and have a lasting impact on the future of Key2Finesse.