Community members, district administrators, Diamond Bar High School students and faculty participated in Team Sprocket’s Walk-It for Yimbo, a 13k fundraiser to increase  awareness of the struggles that students in other countries, specifically in Yimbo, Kenya, have to endure to travel to school everyday.

People gathered at the DBHS track on Feb. 29  to walk the eight miles that children in Yimbo have to walk just to attend school. Over 100 people  walked 32 laps around the track. To show their concern for the conditions that the children in Yimbo  face, every member of Team Sprocket, the DBHS robotics team, was there. 

 The team came up with  the idea to hold this fundraiser through one of the  sponsors of robotics. 

“We originally heard about it through one of our sponsors D2L [Dedicated2Learning], and our advisor and coaches jumped to help. I think as a team we wanted to give to the people who are so creative and have so much potential but don’t have the resources to express that,” Team Sprocket member junior Iris Gonzalez said. 

Beyond raising money and bringing attention to the difficult walk that  prevents many children in Yimbo from going to school, Team Sprocket also had another goal: to remind DBHS students how fortunate they are to come to school so easily. 

“I hope the students who participated gained empathy towards the kids in Yimbo, and misfortunate kids in general who are willing to walk eight miles to and from school just to get an education,” senior Jessica Yen, one of Team Sprocket’s captains, said. “I hope they gained awareness and felt gratitude for their access to things such as cars and Uber. I also hope they realized that we should all be more mindful and grateful for the opportunities we have in front of us.” 

Prior to the event, the team held a  video chat with students at a Kenya school in the area where many of the students do walk eight miles to and from school. 

“We chose this way to give back since when we video called them a while back, we were amazed by how far they have to walk everyday,” Yen said. “This is only one of the ways we are giving back. With the funds, we are creating STEM kits and gathering resources for them to be able to go to school and learn.” 

At the end of the event, the co-founder of Friends of Yimbo, Ben Odipo, spoke about how grateful he was that Team Sprocket was helping him draw attention to this problem.

Overall, the event was more than just a fundraiser to bring awareness to the struggles that these students are facing. It was an eye-opening way for students to reflect on the resources that aren’t necessarily accessible to everybody.

“It felt really fulfilling especially because I could do it with my friends,” Gonzalez said. “The aching in my feet was a reminder that this is something kids have to do every day only to get to school, and then [they] have to walk the same amount going back home with a pack or food or whatnot.”