By Joylynn Lee
Arts Editor
The new Mustangs of Hope Club builds awareness to build homes for those in poverty.
The co-presidents McLean Grimes, Brendan Feng, and Ellie Penczar created this club to raise
awareness of poverty-stricken individuals and families in Tijuana, Mexico. Currently, the club
has over 100 members. They aim to support Home Zone families with fundraisers and drives.
“We fundraise to support [Homes of Hope and Home Zone], that are helping families who are
suffering from extreme poverty,” Penczar said. “Homes of Hope hosts teams who come and
build homes for homeless families, and Hope Zone runs programs like voluntary fundraisers for
families and kids.”
The Mustangs of Hope Club’s goal is to impact the world by benefiting the people in need. They
have been on several home builds in Tijuana and have seen many families and kids forced to
live in poverty in one of North America’s largest crime areas.
“We have two goals; one is to raise school fees for each child in each home that we build this
summer,” Feng said. “Our other goal is to support Hope Zone families with different fundraisers.”
When creating their fundraisers, Mustangs of Hope aims to raise money for children by
supplying school supplies drives. While acknowledging that in Mexico education is free, books and tools cannot be provided for, therefore they hope to raise money to fund books and
uniforms, allowing students to focus on their education.
“We were assuming that less people would have joined, although with this amount of people, we can have more success raising money for the children” Penczar said.
Mustangs of Hope started with 114 sign-ups on Club Day. Club Day is a day when Costa allows
clubs to raise money for their clubs. There are currently 86 members showing up to club
meetings. They planned to create their first fundraiser during the second meeting on Oct. 14.
“Everyone who has gone has seen with their own eyes what a difference we can all make if we
just give a little bit of time and effort,” Penczar said.
Mustangs of Hope claims to be different from other clubs as students from all grade levels have
participated in the summer home builds with their families. On these home builds all the
volunteers share the one goal of making lives better, according to Grimes.
“Building homes has become an important part of my life along with Brendan and Ellie,” Grimes
said. “It’s a great experience; we wanted more families to become more involved.”
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