Meet Sophia Ni, Anushka Polapally, Gaathri Chakka

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sophia Ni, Anushka Polapally, Gaathri Chakka. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Sophia Ni, Anushka Polapally, Gaathri Chakka, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

We found that despite the plethora of student organizations in our area, many students were volunteering at the same few organizations and were finding their service work uninteresting. The diversity in opportunities was so obvious, but the range of participation was so narrow which made us wonder why people would not opt to volunteer within organizations that lie within their specific interests. It became clear that the issue lied in the disorganized advertising of smaller student run organizations on social media. It was so easy to miss the work they were doing in the noise of an Instagram feed, so we decided that we needed to create an isolated place to advertise student run organizations and their events.

As active participants in volunteerism, we also saw the disorganized systems that smaller student organizations were using to host sign-ups for their events. They used an array of third party websites, which led to so much inconsistency in sign up processes when students wanted to volunteer at an array of organizations. Peared aims to centralize this volunteer sign up process to our website so that information would be easily exchanged from volunteer to organization and vice versa, the same way, regardless of the organization.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

Peared connects volunteers with tailored community service opportunities by centralizing local events and providing resources and advertising to grassroots organizations, fostering stronger and more engaged communities. Peared offers two services: a volunteering opportunity forum and sign-up platform, and a general organization advertising forum. The first is a service that allows organizations to post volunteering opportunities on our website in order to get volunteer signups. The volunteers will then sign up via the Peared website, and can see a wider reach of opportunities than they would otherwise using social media. The second is a service where organizations can post a little bit about their organization, like their mission statement, social media, photos, etc.. This can help smaller organizations find interested students, whereas on social media, their reach would not be as large.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Looking back, there were three qualities that stood out as the most impactful in our journey with Peared. The first is adaptability, since so much of what we’ve done has involved learning as we go and adjusting our ideas based on feedback and new challenges. The second is communication, because connecting with organizations and working with our team while explaining our vision clearly has been essential to building momentum and making sure everyone does their part. The third is time management, as balancing school and extracurriculars has required us to stay organized and focused. For anyone early in their journey, we recommend starting small and being open to change, while practicing clear and consistent communication with everyone you work with.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

We’re always looking to partner with local organizations, especially youth-led nonprofits, school clubs, and businesses in the Greater Houston area, to help make opportunities more accessible and impactful for students. Our goal is to give every organization equal visibility through our platform. By creating an organization post directly on pearedco.org, they are already collaborating with us as we directly promote their organization and opportunities to people who are actively looking for ways to get involved. Organizations can further connect with us by reaching out through our social media, such as Instagram, or by email.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.pearedco.org
• Instagram: pearedco
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/company/pearedco
• Other: Discord server: https://discord.gg/K2dWEFmbZA