On April 24th, 2020, the grandfather of Ethan Elkins ’23 passed away from COVID-19. While Elkins officially lost his grandfather on that day, he feels he had already lost his grandfather before then. “He passed away due to COVID, but we had really lost him… years before because he had late-stage Alzheimer’s,” explained Elkins.

Elkins has become passionate about raising money and awareness for Alzheimer’s disease since his grandfather’s death. This year, he helped to lead the revival of the SHS Alzheimer’s club. “Abby Fehrenbaker, who is now a sophomore in college, actually created the club three or four years ago,” explained Elkins. “They had one or two years of being an active club and then when COVID hit, pretty much everything [we did] was impossible to do… so the club just kind of got lost in the mix,” he added. “Abby reached out to me saying, Hey, do you want to take the Alzheimer’s club… [with] your grandpa and his legacy… And I was like, yes, absolutely,” said Elkins.

The revival of the club has been a huge success so far. “We have almost 80 members… for a pretty new club… [I’m] very happy with it,” said Elkins. Other than himself, there’s vice president Ben Hyman ’23, treasurer Ryan Ornstein ’23, and many others helping out with the creative aspects. “We also have a bunch of other people helping out with like the Instagram account, like Charlie Block, and Nicky Rappaport is helping with just creating some of the ideas,” Elkins added.

One of the largest events of the year is planned for this Sunday, October 3 at Westchester Community College. “Our main event is going to be on October 3rd, which is the Walk to End Alzheimer’s,” said Elkins. Elkins explained that they have already raised over seven thousand through the event and is thinking of more ideas for future events.“Some things that we plan for the future are going to be bake sales and selling Dunkin outside of the Brewster entrance,” said Elkins. He hopes to continue the club’s success throughout the rest of high school.