Khaled Hosseini Featured at Notre Dame-Bellarmine Event

Khaled Hosseini holds a check representing the $6,000 that Notre Dame raised for Student Outreach
for Shelters, while students show the Lego buildings that were built during the SOS fundraising:
(from left) Molly Cashman, Taylor Litonjua, Alexis Estioko, Gagan Sandhu and Katrina Ramos.

An audience filled with parents and educators spent a recent evening with Khaled Hosseini, best-selling author of “The Kite Runner’’ and “A Thousand Splendid Suns’’—the 2010 ND Reads selection. Co-sponsored by Notre Dame and Bellarmine College Prep, the event was held at that school’s Sobrato Center. The crowd of several hundred learned about the humanitarian efforts of Dr. Hosseini’s foundation, as well as SOS—Student Outreach for Shelters—a program designed to aid displaced families in Afghanistan, his homeland.

Jan Tupaj-Farthing, Vice Principal of Academic Affairs, noted the outstanding public moment for Notre Dame: “from ASB President Raquel Ryan’s interview of Khaled Hosseini—very poised and articulate—to junior Feeza Mohammad’s testimonial on her work in Pakistan with orphaned refugee girls, to English teacher Katie Kuszmar’s sharing of her experience with the novel and the curriculum.’’

SOS made its national debut at ND last fall, when Dr. Hosseini paid a special visit to the campus to discuss “A Thousand Splendid Suns’’ and the efforts of his foundation. In only three months, students, faculty and staff raised more than $6,000, enough to build more than four shelters.

The purpose of the Bellarmine evening was to encourage more educators to embrace the SOS program at their own schools, an effort that got off to a strong start. Following the presentation, enough was raised from donations from the audience for two more shelters. Thanks to these six new shelters from the ND community and the January 27 event, 33 Afghan refugees will now have a place to call home. Here’s what the San Jose Mercury News had to say about the evening (scroll to the third item, "Team Effort", in Sal Pizarro’s column): http://www.mercurynews.com/sal-pizarro/ci_17253321?nclick_check=1.