Knowledge Unlocked To Everyone (K.U.T.E.), a youth-led nonprofit based in South Jersey and dedicated to bridging the gap in educational resources for students in underserved communities, will host a community event at the township library on Saturday at 12:30 p.m.
Local volunteers will help assemble K.U.T.E. kits – personalized school-supply boxes filled with essentials like pencils, notebooks, crayons and erasers, bookmarks, motivational stickers and learning tip cards. Each kit is designed to support a student’s learning while encouraging confidence and curiosity. All ages are welcome, and supplies will be provided.
To fulfill its objective of promoting educational equity for all, K.U.T.E. donates books, school supplies and monetary donations to schools that need them. The group’s last build day of kits brought together more than 30 volunteers and supported students in a Title I classroom in Camden. Now the K.U.T.E. is excited to do it again, and it is looking for local schools or teachers who could benefit from the kits.
“My community is not just the people in my neighborhood, the people that I know socially, but it’s kind of the whole world,” said Himanshu Sahore, COO of K.U.T.E. “So I think that by being a part of this organization and doing the work, I’m able to really tap into that global community.”
Founded by Dhru Ponnamaneni in 2022, the organization’s biggest project to date was when it donated about 5,000 books to a library in the Philippines. The group has also worked with other youth-led groups and recently partnered with the nonprofit Global Medical Brigades, an international movement of students and medical professionals working alongside local communities and staff to implement sustainable health systems.
That organization’s programs include a Brook Drive, a community-driven initiative aimed at spreading the joy of reading and promoting literacy among underprivileged children, and the K.U.T.E. kits program to assemble educational resource boxes designed to inspire confidence and ignite curiosity in students who need it most.
“I think it’s really cool to see the network in the community that exists within people pursuing social entrepreneurship and trying to grow their own movements in their own ways, and I think that’s been a huge, positive experience for me,” noted Zaydan Lalani, CFO of K.U.T.E.
“We want to inspire the youth, getting as many volunteers from New Jersey, but we also want to expand to the rest of the country, even globally as well,” Ponnamaneni explained. “Just getting as many youth-led volunteers so we can show them that if we were able to do this, you guys can too.
“It is possible with the right help,” Ponnamaneni added. “You can also get your foot in the door, and you can maybe start your own initiative, possibly in the future, building in a different space or in a similar space as well.”
For more information on K.U.T.E., visit www.thekute.org.
