She is as instantly recognizable as any student at San Marino High School and two weeks ago, senior Lisa Lu received further accolades when she was acknowledged as Student of the Month for January by the Rotary Club of San Marino.
“As I prepare to step into adulthood, I’ve been reflecting on my worldview,” Lu said during the luncheon meeting at San Marino Community Church. “A problem our society faces today is the erosion of empathy. When African American Eric Garner was choked to death by two police officers, no bystander protested. There are many perspectives in which we can view the world, but I believe humanity is a prerequisite because it’s not scary if we have problems, but it’s daunting if we don’t combat them.”
That weighty introduction set the tone for Lu’s presentation, which touched on some of her remarkable extracurricular that have set her apart from many of her peers.
A member of the girls’ varsity basketball team, Lu is also president of the school’s math team, LEO Club and California Scholarship Federation. As a freshman, she founded a nonprofit, International Youth Tobacco Control, to help protect young people from the harms of tobacco and vaping. She is also captain of the speech and debate and mock trial teams.
“I empathize with low-income defendants who plead guilty in fear of inadequate trial defense, so I interned at law firms in the past two years and collaborated with professor Laurie Levenson of Loyola Law School on the Project for the Innocent, which has exonerated people after 34 years of wrongful conviction,” Lu said, as the audience gasped.
She said that San Marino High School has “endowed me with the ability to empathize.”
“I am very grateful to Rotary and my high school for recognizing my passion,” Lu said. “I hope to blaze my trail of change heart-to-heart and step-by-step.”
SMHS’ Lu Is Rotary Club’s Student of Month
