Glenbrook North sophomore plays the harp to raise funds globally

Glenbrook North High School sophomore Sonia Thakkar has made the most of this new boom in of remote communication.

A harp player, she participated in a concert livestreamed on YouTube designed to entertain and raise funds for health care workers in the state of Karnataka in southwest India. Thakkar said Karnataka has the fourth highest number of COVID-19 cases in the country.

She also has raised more than $3,000 on the ImpactGuru website for personal protective equipment kits for health care workers in another Indian state, Andhra Pradesh. Those kits are produced by a unit that promotes rural employment and female empowerment, according to Sonia's mother, Roopal.

The ability to reach across the globe from her Northbrook home "feels amazing," Sonia Thakkar said.

"I feel like technology has helped in so many ways, where we're able to help people across the world. It's a surreal feeling."

A harpist the past six years, and a member of the Glenbrook Symphony Orchestra that combines musicians from Glenbrook North and Glenbrook South, Thakkar had contacted a friend in India, Ayush Gharat, who produced the video. Sonia's father, Devang, attended dental school in Mumbai, the former Bombay, with Gharat's mother.

Gharat, of Bengaluru (Bangalore), had formed an organization called Aashwas to help health care workers working with the Karnataka COVID State Task Force. Gharat's "Project Muskaan" ("Smiles" in Hindi) presents online events for those health care workers.

As part of the hourlong video concert, "The Aashwas Musical/Music for a Cause," Sonia Thakkar played a medley of Bollywood and Hindi songs on her harp

"I didn't want to play songs that they wouldn't know, so I played songs that would be familiar to them," she said. She did get a snippet from "Slumdog Millionaire" in there.

Thakkar's activism and activities are not contained to the harp, which intrigued her after seeing a video of instrumental performances in grade school.

She's in the Glenbrook Academy of International Studies, is a board member of Glenbrook North's P.A.W.S. (Protection of Animal Welfare by Students) and participates in the school's Kids 4 the Cure Club to raise cancer awareness.

Online, she teaches English to a fourth-grade student in India. She's trained in the Indian classical dance form, Bharatanatyam, plays piano and a stringed instrument called the veena, and was on the school badminton team.

Thakkar said her ImpactGuru fundraiser will end in a few weeks, but already she's eclipsed her goal of $2,000.

"It was just very exciting to see that other people, a lot of my family and friends, also wanted to help others and make a global impact," she said.