Shaler Area High School Japanese Honor Society helps fight world hunger

Shaler Area High School’s Japanese National Honor Society decided to fight world hunger in a unique way. Table for Two, a global initiative that works to increase school lunch nutritional value by partnering with corporations, restaurants and schools to serve healthy TFT-branded meals, announced the start of its annual Onigiri Action.

Onigiri are Japanese rice balls made of steamed rice that are compressed into a triangular, ball or cylindric shape and are usually wrapped in a nori seaweed sheet. Each year, Table for Two hosts a month long initiative where people can make their own rice balls and post photos of them with the hashtag #OnigiriAction. With each photo, five school meals are donated to children in need around the world.

The honor society, advised by Japanese teacher Steven Balsomico, participates in the action each year.

“We’ve been doing this for a few years now,” said Bella Minyo, 16, vice president of the Shaler Area Japanese National Honor Society. “This is really beneficial for high school students. They get involved with their community on a national level. We’re always on social media, and this allows us to help other people through those channels.”

Before the class was given the go ahead to start their rice balls, Balsomico demonstrated how to make the rice and form the onigiri. He instructed students to salt the cooked rice to make it easier to form. He then pulled sheets of saran wrap and, while the rice was still warm, rolled the salted rice into the wrap to make the desired shape. After shaping, he cut pieces of nori, or seaweed, and wrapped the desired amount around the rice ball.

Students were given free reign with their creativity. Some chose to create animals with their onigiri while some chose to use rice molds brought in by Balsomico.

“We’re big on sharing Japanese culture as a whole,” said Quinne Vulakovich, 17, president of the Shaler Area Japanese National Honor Society. “It’s a pretty big goal of ours to learn about it as students and to help our community learn. This is one of our bigger events and it’s great because it’s for charity. It’s not only giving back but it really helps us learn about the culture as well.”

Students in the honor society must speak at a second level of Japanese and maintain a B grade point average to get in and stay in the society. They participate in many projects throughout the year that help spread awareness of Japanese culture and help their local communities.