By BridgeCare
The first answer was no.
In 2025, Ebrahim Randhawa and Sophia Li wanted to start BridgeCare’s first school chapter at Carnegie Vanguard High School. They were building it together from the beginning. Before they could bring students into the club, though, they had to convince the school to let it exist.
The application was rejected.
Administrators had questions. How was this different from the Red Cross club? Was the nonprofit legitimate? Would the chapter last after its founders graduated, or disappear once it had served its purpose on a résumé?
Ebrahim admits he almost gave up. It would have been easy for the story to end there.
But he and Sophia decided to appeal. Ebrahim wrote the email, the team built the case together, and Sophia sent it from her account.
This time, the answer was yes.
Then came the club fair: 145+ students signed up. At the first meeting, so many people showed up that they had to move to a bigger room.
They had gone from convincing the school they needed a club to finding enough room for everyone who wanted to join.
That was a good problem to have. Keeping those students involved was the next challenge.
Anirudh helped make that happen. As co-president, he brought people into the club and organized many of its meetings. His work gave the chapter momentum beyond its first crowded gathering, keeping members engaged and coming back. Ebrahim credits him as a huge part of why the chapter grew so quickly.
Soon, the work was reaching well beyond campus.
Carnegie students made more than 100 hygiene kits, out of roughly 175 assembled across BridgeCare during that period. Every kit the chapter made was distributed. Ebrahim also led fundraising through sponsors, bake sales, events, and individual donors. The chapter brought in most of the roughly $4,000 raised across BridgeCare at that stage.
Two weeks before our April 2026 outreach, the team went to encampments to hand out flyers. More than 100 neighbors came to the event. BridgeCare distributed 100 hygiene kits and 100 hot meals, and KPRC 2 covered the gathering.
Think back to that first rejected application. The chapter had gone on to help fund the work, prepare the supplies, bring students together, and get those supplies into people’s hands. It became one of Carnegie’s biggest student organizations. For BridgeCare, it became part of the foundation everything else could grow from.
When we say we couldn’t have done this without them, we mean it. Without Ebrahim, Sophia, and Anirudh, there would be no BridgeCare as we know it.
That is why we chose to give all three the BridgeCare Leadership Award.
We’re recognizing Ebrahim Randhawa for helping carry the idea through rejection and bringing in the resources to make it work. Sophia Li for co-founding the chapter alongside him and seeing that uncertain beginning through together. And Anirudh for bringing people in, keeping them connected, and helping the chapter become a community.
Their story belongs to the members who joined them, too: everyone who packed a kit, helped at a fundraiser, or came out to serve. Ebrahim, Sophia, and Anirudh helped make a place for all of that to happen.
Thank you for giving BridgeCare its first chapter, and so much of what came after.
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