Alex Hutchins
Web Manager
Last year junior Dan Antoniu visited Valea Screzii Children’s Camp, an orphanage in Romania, for the first time. Since his visit he has dedicated most of his time to supporting the cause with his new club, Aid for Valea Screzii. “I saw what it was sophomore year and then as a junior I actually went there and volunteered,” he said. “I see it as a place where I can help out, a place where I am needed.”
Located in Prahova, Romania’s third most populated county, the Valea Screzii Children’s Camp has helped improve the lives of over 1,000 abandoned or orphaned children, young mothers facing extreme adversities as well as poor and homeless people. Father Nicolae Tanase, whose mission was to create a place where people in need could find peace and safety, founded the Children’s Camp in 1989 after the Romanian Revolution. Today, the camp looks after more than 300 children and receives help from various volunteer organizations, like Dan’s.
The Aid for Valea Screzii Club, while only founded this year, has made several contributions to the camp as the result of successful bake sales and other, more need-based fundraising activities. “Basically our idea is to help them any way we can,” Dan said. “For example, because it’s wintertime I’m thinking about some kind of drive for warm clothing; something that the camp specifically needs.”
Club member junior Steven Windas, who accompanied Dan on his first trip to the camp, also found pleasure in helping those in need at the camp. “By seeing the camp in person, I felt that I was a part of it and that it was my job to help out these people that were in need,” he said.
Steven also noted the importance of doing volunteer work like he did in Valea Screzii. “It’s a good way for students to become involved in real world affairs and gain experience with issues that are challenging our world today,” he said.
Club member junior Bridget Callahan also recognized the importance of volunteer work. “It’s important for people who live in a generally well-off town like New Canaan to know that it’s not like that everywhere in the world,” she said. “We can make a difference in other areas that may not be as fortunate.”
While Steven believes starting clubs that benefit society is always a good idea, he recognizes it may be difficult for people to start one of their own because of the amount of time and work that is needed to make the club successful. “Not only do time commitments make it hard to run a club, but also finding members and having a strong sense of where you want your club to go can make starting a club like Dan’s a challenge,” he said.
Since there are many challenges that come along with starting a club like Aid for Valea Screzii, Dan stressed the importance of a good relationship with the faculty advisor. Specifically, Dan noted how his advisor, math department head Wendy Guda, was always willing to support him in his endeavors. “She is always ready when I have a question,” he said. “She trusts me with all of the finances and whenever I need her support on something she is always ready to back me up on it”.
Ms. Guda has found that the most important aspect of being an advisor is knowing when to let the students take control. “I think it’s important that an advisor just be in the background and that the students do the work themselves,” she said. “If it gets to the point where the advisor is running the group, then the group shouldn’t exist. The group should really be something that the students want to do and the advisor should be there only to provide a classroom or help answer questions that the group needs answered.”
Ms. Guda commends Dan for starting his club. She believes he knows what he wants to do and connects personally with the idea, even if it is far from home. “In the case of this club, with Dan, he has a definite goal to provide more support for this area and to provide them with certain things,” she said. “You can’t just have a club to have a club and so I’m glad to see that Dan has a plan for what he wants his club to accomplish.”
