All photos submitted by Sarah Kowalske.

Cameron Schilling

There is something special about seeing a child flip through a book and suddenly stop on a page because they recognize something: a drawing, a character, a little piece of themselves. That is exactly what StoryBuilders has been creating this year, and it is hard not to be moved by it.

The idea behind the club is one that is as simple as it is meaningful. Members visit local elementary schools where second graders draw original characters. From there, the high schoolers take those drawings and build a story around them, printing the finished product into a real book that gets read aloud to the kids, and that each of them gets to keep. It is part creative writing, part community service, and entirely the kind of thing that reminds you why those things matter.

From a Class Project to Something Much Bigger

StoryBuilders didn’t begin as a club. It began as a final project in Mrs. Kowalske’s AP Language & Composition class in 2024, where a group of ten students worked on a service project after their AP test. Last year, Vihaan Kulkarni and Brody Carlson were part of a team that picked up and continued the project for the same two classrooms at Maple Avenue Elementary School. What happened next made it clear that this was worth continuing well beyond a grade.

After the service project concluded, Kulkarni and Carlson had a vision to make this accessible to all of the second grade classrooms in the Hamilton School District.

"We saw the joy it brought to the kids and were thrilled to have the opportunity again," said Kulkarni.

For Carlson, the response made the next step obvious, "The project was so successful that we saw it fitting to keep it going all year around and expand it to the entire district instead of only two classrooms."

And so the club was born.

A Year of Growth

This year, StoryBuilders has visited Woodside and Marcy Elementary Schools, creating nine original books between the two schools. Five more are planned for Maple, bringing the year’s total to fourteen books across three schools.

Getting there has come with real challenges. Printing 25 copies of a book that runs anywhere from 18 to 30 pages puts strain on school resources, and coordinating the schedules of students, teachers, and multiple schools is no simple task. “Time management has been a challenge as members finish books at different times,” Kulkarni noted, but the club has worked through it, and the results have made it worth every bit of the effort.

The Moment That Makes It All Worth It

If you ask any member of StoryBuilders what keeps them coming back, the answer is almost always the same, the kids.

"My favorite part is reading the book to the kids and them getting excited about seeing their characters," said member Jack Fischer.

Evan Wagner described one reaction that has stayed with him: "One of my favorite times, a kid saw his character and screamed, 'My character is evil! Yes!' and then came to hug me." It is the kind of moment you can’t forget.

The books have also taken on a life of their own in the classroom, complete with recurring jokes that send the kids into a frenzy every time. Ryan Dahms recalled a quieter student whose entire demeanor changed the moment he found his drawing, "When he saw his skateboarder in the book, his face lit up and as soon as he got the book, he flipped to the page his character was on and made sure everyone saw it."

For Mollie Westfahl, it goes beyond the excitement of the moment, “I want to show them that their creativity doesn't go to waste," she said.

Mich Urban put it simply, "When we tell them that they get to keep the book after we're done reading, they always light up."

The characters the kids create have become some of the club’s most beloved memories: a skateboarder from Woodside, a banana-themed dinosaur named Bananasaurus Rex, a dinosaur french fry alien, and a shark villain named Grr Face a Gogo.

What Comes Next

As Kulkarni and Carlson prepare to head to college, their focus has shifted toward making sure what they built keeps going without them. Leadership applications have gone out to current members who have been helping throughout the year, and a new group of leaders will be selected soon.

"We hope the club will be able to create books for all elementary second graders in the district next year," said Kulkarni.

Carlson added that the goal is to "create a strong base for reaching all four elementary schools."

For a club that started as a single class assignment, StoryBuilders has already made a real impact—fourteen books, hundreds of kids, and a reminder that when you hand a child something that they helped make, something unforgettable happens. StoryBuilders is making sure that keeps happening.