Ananya Garg – Spring 2021 Award Recipient

Our next Get Involved Award recipient is Ananya Garg, a junior at American High School. For her service project, she started an initiative called “Project Safe Streets” in Fremont, which aimed to increase visibility at street intersections so that pedestrians could cross safely, especially during busy mornings.

Ananya came up with this idea after a close experience with a car accident while crossing the street. Through this, she learned just how vulnerable student pedestrians in Fremont are and she sought to solve this largely unnoticed shortcoming.

To begin, Ananya met with the Fremont Police Department and the City of Fremont Public Works Department to come up with potential solutions. After these meetings, she worked with the Girl Scouts of America to start her project and she reached out to various schools to set up her ideas.

After reaching out to schools, Ananya began to implement a set of crossing flags at 3-4 crossings located near schools in FUSD. These flags were useful to students of all ages and increased visibility to car drivers, which minimized life-threatening accidents.

In addition to setting up crosswalk flags, Ananya also gave 10+ interactive and engaging presentations to elementary school students to spread tips on crossing safely, increasing visibility and decreasing the likelihood of accidents. Additionally, through these sessions, she was able to collect data through forms to determine the effectiveness of crossing safety she had implemented. 

Through Project Safe Streets, Ananya learned how to communicate effectively and be organized, especially while meeting with so many people. Additionally, she learned to budget and research while figuring out how to implement flags at crosswalks. Lastly, she gained valuable skills in planning, teamwork, and public speaking during the presentation sessions she held. All in all, Project Safe Streets has taught Ananya how to be a leader and her work continues to be seen all around the streets in Fremont. View her interview with Get Involved here.