Rancho Santa Fe’s Henry Hou, a sophomore at The Bishop’s School recently put on a successful benefit concert, raising $2,000 for refugee students and families in San Diego.
All proceeds from the concert went to support RefugeeNet, a local organization that Henry said is doing “life-saving” work with resettled refugees, those who have been displaced because of war, violence and persecution in their home countries.
Held at the Good Samaritan Episcopal Church on Sept 28, the concert featured performances by the North County String Ensemble, the international award-winning youth orchestra directed by Luyan Guo. Doing double duty as event organizer and performer, Henry has been a cellist in the ensemble for the last eight years. The choir from St. Luke’s North Park, a partner of RefugeeNet, also performed traditional East African music.
“I think it went great,” Henry said. “We had a lot larger turnout than we expected and I think we’re planning on having this event in the future as well.”
The concert was put on by The Bishop’s School student service club called ROOTS, also known as Refugee Children’s Organization of Science and Technology, which Henry founded in 2021. Henry started the club after he was invited by RefugeeNet to perform in one of their Christmas concerts and learned more about their efforts.
“I was interested in working with them to see if there was anything I could do to help,” Henry said.
The club’s focus has mostly been on the education of refugee children. In the past two years ROOTS has partnered with RefugeeNet to provide tutoring, run book drives and put on summer camps for refugee students in City Heights, teaching robotics and general STEM subjects. ROOTS’ mission is to foster young learners’ love for science and engineering, as well as boost their self-esteem so they can become active contributors to their host country and communities. Henry said they hope to raise more funds for RefugeeNet this year and to provide the students with even more opportunities to learn through camps and field trips.
Learn more about the ROOTS Club at rootsclub.org and RefugeeNet at refugee-net.org