Grace Guo, photographer of A5 and junior, looks through the club roster for yearbook photos. Guo said that club member have risen to 180 members since last year.

According to Chenyao Liu, president of A5 and senior, A5 will collaborate with Carmel South Asian Club and Carmel Giving Hope to host a Diwali event on Oct. 27.

“(The Diwali event) is going to be right after school (on Oct. 27) in the Freshman Cafeteria. (A5’s) going to try and have a lot of South Asian snacks. (A5 is also) going to have activities like mehndi, which is like henna, and rangoli which is chalk design,” Liu said.

The day after the Diwali event, A5 will host a Zoom call with a guest speaker, Darakshan Raja, executive director of Muslims for Just Futures.

Ana Mencias, social media manager and junior said, “On Oct. 28, we’re having Darakshan Raja speak about post-9/11 backlash for South Asians, government targeting and how students can protect communities. There will be some snacks available and time for a Q&A (questions and answers).”

Co-sponsor of A5 Casey Danubio said, “The A5 club is really wonderful because it’s grown so much in the last couple of years, and they work really hard to create a comfortable space where all kinds of things can be discussed pertaining to challenges and issues within the Asia community but also, you know, how people who are not in the Asian community can be more understanding and culturally sensitive and culturally aware of some of the issues that Asian people face.”