Rohit Katuri

A group of students took it to the next level when they got a chance to showcase their philanthropic skills through DECA, and from there, Angels Among Us, a nonprofit for medical awareness, was formed.

“Originally it all started with DECA,” Junior Nikhil Kota said. “There was a competition, called the Social Impact Leader of Tomorrow Challenge, where we essentially had to record our marketing campaign. It was a team of four, Rohit, Shawn and I all participated in that, and we ended up placing third. We ended up raising 6-6.5K for that organization through door-to-door fundraising mainly.”

Through this, they were inspired to turn it into something real and keep going. 

“To see how much that grew inspired us to keep pushing, and we got a sense of fulfillment from it,” Kota said. 

After the early origins of the organization were formed, they started spreading their mission. 

“So right now we’re branching out and it all started here at LT,” Junior Shawn Sebastian said. “We have several chapters getting set up like Independence, Prosper, and right now we’re trying to expand more so we have bigger outreach.”

Spreading awareness is an integral part of Angels Among Us as a whole. 

“A big part of our club is raising awareness so we teach these people about the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation and the Muscular Dystrophy Association and once they learn, they can tell other people,” Sebastian said. “It’s like a chain, and we hope to raise a lot of money towards the end of it, and awareness too.”

The members of the organization took multiple steps to fuel their outreach. 

“So we started by developing a marketing plan to reach out to local areas and that started by using social media,” Sophomore Aneesh Chintala said. “We did a lot of posts about what we were doing and why it was important and from there we also started using [word-of-mouth] and verbal communication to get the word out and that helped create a lot of impact and bring a lot of volunteers to our events.”

However, it hasn’t always been smooth for the Angels Among Us. They’ve experienced many setbacks and had to persevere through the difficulties. 

“Setting up chapters have a lot of roadblocks,” Sebastian said. “We are trying to guide people and fundraise as well, and need to have contingency plans.”

Throughout the journey, determination has become a much-needed trait for the nonprofit. The officers have navigated through many obstacles and gotten equipped to handle all types of situations. 

“Prepare and prepare, that’s the most important thing,” Sebastian said.