3 McLean Area High School Seniors Honored for Service to Others

The McLean Rotary honored three McLean high school seniors Tuesday for their commitment to serving the community and exemplifying Rotary International’s guiding principle of Service Above Self.

The three Youth Service Award Winners received a certificate and $250 scholarships for their work helping others. Here are their accomplishments:

Zhina Kamali, Senior, McLean High School 

Zhina has raised nearly $10,000 for the Stop Hunger Now program sponsored by McLean Rotary. Spent 60 hours working as a stagehand at the Alden Theater, which is her passion. But she has also attended the Virginia aerospace program.

With all her volunteer work she still manages to maintain a 3.99grade point average.She's  awaiting college acceptance letters. She plans to study business and marketing.

 Zhina Kamali is president of McLean High School’s Interact Club, a Club sponsored by the Rotary Club of McLean. Zhina has organized events and raised funds for organizations such as Stop Hunger Now and ShelterBox.

  Last year, she year she helped generate over $3,000 for Stop Hunger Now and over $2,000 for ShelterBox. This year she helped generate the $6,000 that the Interact Club had committed to the Stop Hunger Now event in November.  Zhina took part in helping the Safe Community Coalition with its event “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” which helped raise awareness of teenage dating violence and abuse. As president of McLean High’s National Honor Society, Zhina also creates opportunities for the members to tutor their peers at McLean and other schools.

As a member of Project Enlightenment, a historical reenactment club, Zhina spends time doing research so that she can then accurately depict a character at local elementary schools’ colonial days as well as at Mt. Vernon, Montpelier, and other historical sites.

 Sheerin Tehrani, Senior, Langley High School

Sheerin speaks three languages: French, Farsi and English. She is president of the French Club at Langley. She volunteers at Georgetown University Hospital. She organized her first fundraiser for Katrina victims  nine years ago.

Sheerin Tehrani has organized and hosted “Remember Haiti 2010,” a benefit concert to continue supporting th vistims of the 2009 Haiti earthquake.  She organized five local bands to perform, promoted the event to four local high schools and raised over $2,000 to be sent over through an American foundation.  Also, Sheerin is very involved with “Light of the Life” charity program in Iran, in which she traveled to Iran during the summer of 2010 to help provide schooling and education for girls in villages and small rural communities.

 Keenan Lidral-Porter, Senior, The Potomac School

“He doesn’t do community service. He lives it. . He searches for real solutions to help those in need.” That's how Keenan was introduced Tuesday to accept his service award.

 Caring, thoughtful, reliable, and dedicated, Keenan Lidral-Porter is always looking for real solutions to help others in need and the first to volunteer.

As a sophomore and junior, Keenan tutored underprivileged elementary school-age children at the Herndon Resource Center on a regular basis after a long day of school and sports practice. On top of all the work and pressure of junior year, Keenan was either serving breakfast at Embry Rucker Homeless Shelter, cooking and eating dinner with the residents of Alternative House Teen Shelter in Tysons Corner, VA, giving blood at the Fall and Spring Inova blood drives, helping to take bike donations for Bikes for the World, or tutoring the children from Potomac School’s “Poder” ("can" in Spanish) on campus during sports every other Monday. In the late spring of last year, Keenan was named as one of six Co-Leaders of the Community Service Club for 2011-2012.  Keenan stands out as the first to volunteer for any Community Service event.  He has helped transport donated coats for the Potomac School’s Coat Drive for Reston Interfaith’s Coat Closet, and has been a huge help laying the groundwork for Potomac School’s upcoming Christmas in April Project.  Keenan genuinely wants to make a difference in other people’s lives and truly embodies the “kindness, civility, and generosity of spirit” Potomac School strives to instill in its students.