Evelyn Feldmann | The Chronicle
Six months ago, a team of Mason High School (MHS) freshmen joined to form a nonprofit organization. Their initiative would go on to donate over 22,000 items, all resources used to teach kids how to handle their emotions.
Handmade Gifts Initiative (HGI) has one goal: bring social-emotional learning (SEL) education to kids and teens. Sophomore Sonali Kulkarni said that she founded the organization to remove awkwardness surrounding SEL, make SEL education fun and provide teachers with practical, pre-made educational tools that align with Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). These standards aim to educate students in more hands-on, real-world ways.
“We create pre-made lessons for teachers that help them teach their core subject that aligns directly with the Ohio [standards] and NGSS,” Kulkarni said. “[We] combine social-emotional learning into that lesson so [teachers] can teach two things at once.”
Sophomore Nyx Shek is a founding member and co-leader of the bilingual books project for HGI. Shek said SEL is a supplement to everyday life, adding on to what students would already learn simply from life experiences.
“[Social-emotional learning is] learning how to deal with your emotions,” Shek said. “[It is also] how to reconcile with very strong emotions [and] how to deal with others’ emotions in a non-harmful way.”
(Left to right) Handmade Gifts Initiative members sophomore Nyx Shek, freshman Kiara Kanade and sophomore Sophia Li package 667 STEM classroom kits that were donated to Crayons and Beyond.
Sophomore Navisha Ranjan is the head of the communications department for HGI. Ranjan said SEL is valuable because it helps kids understand their own emotions and empathize with those of others.
“At the end of the day, we’re still kids,” Ranjan said. “We’re still learning how to handle the real world, and with the real world comes new emotions that we haven’t experienced before.”
In the summer of 2026, HGI partnered with Crayons and Beyond, an organization that makes school supplies available for free to teachers. HGI donated materials to make 20,000 hoop gliders, a sort of advanced airplane, for 667 classroom kits. These donations impacted 16 counties in Southwest Ohio, Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana. Kulkarni said that the kits were designed to merge SEL with traditional academic focuses.
“Each classroom kit allowed 30 students to make their own gliders,” Kulkarni said. “[The lesson] focused on the aerodynamic concepts [of the glider,] and combined teamwork, anger management, and conflict resolution from social-emotional learning.”
Shek said that they were especially proud of the help the initiative was able to offer through their donation of the science kits.
“I think it’s really cool that we get to help people,” Shek said. “I feel very strongly about human rights, and I think it’s really good that we can help people who are underprivileged, or don’t have access to as much stuff [as we do].”
HGI continues to develop projects that promote their mission. Kulkarni said they are going beyond the individual student to share their resources with larger audiences through their recent digital projects.
“We’re now working to create bilingual books that teach social-emotional learning,” Kulkarni said. “We’re also starting a virtual social-emotional learning club [for 5th to 9th graders] where we can build an audience of younger students.”
As Kulkarni looks back on her experience founding HGI, she said she does not yet feel satisfied, and is always seeking what good she can do next.
“I just want to do more,” Kulkarni said. “There’s so much untapped potential that still has to be explored. I feel like this is just scratching the surface.”
