Mira Yin (‘23, SOE/HC) and Sarah Velez (‘23, SEBS/HC) are Honors College students with a shared passion for service work. They co-founded a group called the Purple Hats Project, which works to hand-craft purple hats for the organization Prevent Child Abuse New Jersey. This organization then delivers these hats to hospitals where they are handed out to new parents to raise awareness of Shaken Baby Syndrome.
Mira and Sarah’s experiences in service work go far back, as Sarah recalls first being introduced to service through her middle school teacher who organized fundraising walks and community gardening opportunities for her students. When that teacher passed away, service took on an added meaning for Sarah. “I’m very motivated by my relationship with my teacher who was like a mentor to me,” she says. “When she passed away, I made it a goal to carry on her mission, and her values continue to motivate me in my service work.”
Likewise, Mira’s inspiration for service work stems from her early childhood when her father would take her to local food pantries to help out and to food drives to give back each Thanksgiving. She went on to become president of her high school’s volunteering organization called Interact Club where she led students in programs such as walk-a-thons, United Way’s Day of Caring events, and many more. She says, “Community service has always been really important because I’ve loved connecting with others. My parents always took me to food drives so it’s something I’ve been used to. These experiences have given me the opportunity to connect with others I never would have otherwise.”
Mira originally began “The Looming Experience” while in high school, which donated hats to local pantries, hospitals, the American Heart Association, Puerto Rico, and more. The Looming Experience resulted in donations of around 2,000 hats, which originally inspired Mira to create the Purple Hat Project. Since October of 2020 Mira and Sarah have been running the Purple Hats Project and have grown it into a strong, collaborative, and incredibly impactful organization. Over 20 active motivated members now take part in the cause and participate in monthly Zoom meetings where they knit, crochet, or loom purple hats together and work on ways to raise awareness for Shaken Baby Syndrome. Their original goal was to have 500 hats created by June 2021, but they have already reached 470 hats in only four short months and are revising their goal to make it even larger.
As a result of the Purple Hats project, Sarah says,
“I’ve gotten a different perspective by taking a leadership role. I hadn’t had a lot of long-term service experiences before, but now I’ve been able to learn about the different pieces that go behind long-term service work and all of the character-building that is involved.”
Mira remarks,
“This project allows me to connect with the New Brunswick Community. Even though I can’t be there right now because of the pandemic, I can still serve and connect with people.” She says, “It just makes me happy to be able to help people. Each hat represents another baby whose family is being educated about Shaken Baby Syndrome.”
Moving forward, Mira and Sarah plan to expand the Purple Hats Project even further, possibly incorporating other important causes into the project and creating hats with other colors that represent important issues. They say, “We don’t intend the Purple Hats Project to just be a Rutgers college project; we intend to continue it past Rutgers. We want to create a sustainable project, and luckily more and more people are willing to pitch in to make that work.”
Mira Yin is majoring in biomedical engineering with a double-minor in biology and chemistry, and Sarah Velez is majoring in exercise science with a minor in psychology.