What exactly is Tassel?

Tassel stands for Teaching And Sharing Skills to Enrich Lives. Basically, it’s an organization that helps people in rural Cambodia, and on our end we fundraise and we also teach the (Cambodian) students English.

What’s the goal behind teaching them English?

It’s to give them a better education so that they have a good start. Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge (the former Communist Party in Cambodia) had so many of their educated people basically killed. We’re just trying to (help them succeed.)

Did you have anything planned for the rest of the school year before this situation came up?

Earlier this year we didn’t have any fundraiser events—most of them were supposed to happen during the second semester, but unfortunately they got cancelled.

What exactly were the events you planned that got cancelled?

The biggest one we had was actually (scheduled for) the day after school got cancelled, which was the Super Smash Bros tournament. That was our biggest fundraiser last year and was supposed to be the biggest this year, but with school closing it couldn’t happen. We had a smaller one where we partnered with Pura Vida bracelets, and that fundraiser did start. We had people in our club sell them to classmates and whoever they knew, but the (school) cancellation happened pretty quickly after we got the bracelets.

Is Tassel planning on holding any events virtually?

No, not really (for the fundraisers and events), but we are holding our officer applications for next year over video call and having it all be through online application.

How are you adapting your plans for next year in response to the lost opportunities this year?

That’s tough, because this year all the officers are seniors, and it’s difficult having someone who was not a formal officer still be there. We’ll just have to train them in communicating with especially the president, and all the other schools in our chapter. 

If school is back in session later this year, would Tassel resume the events that got canceled?

If time allows while we’re at school, I definitely feel we would want to.

Since Tassel is a volunteer/outreach club, do these cancellations have effects beyond the CHS community?

Yes, for sure. When we cancelled, we were supposed to continue the teaching with Cambodia, but then they told us the Cambodian government was having all the schools there shut down. About halfway into our video call teaching, they said that we wouldn’t be teaching classes full of kids (anymore). Instead it would just be those who were teaching Cambodian teachers. The whole organization kind of shut down because of this.

How did teaching in Cambodia work before these cancellations?

We would do it over something similar to Zoom, but (it got cancelled) with all the students that couldn’t go to the classroom (because of the virus). Even a couple of weeks before (teaching) was cancelled, they were wearing facemasks, so it was pretty serious.

How does everyone in the club feel about this?

I know that with the (Super Smash Bros) tournament, I was talking to a few people that were really excited about going. This year, we actually pushed it back later than we had it last year, so that definitely was disappointing, not being able to go through with it, so hopefully we do go back to school. With the teaching and all, for me personally since I also taught, it was a little sad because we didn’t really have a heads up that we were cancelling, so there wasn’t a proper goodbye between us (and the students). That wasn’t something I was hoping for.