A Message From Our Seniors
There’s no one quite like Armita Mirkarimi and Mahmoud Ali. Armita, our phenomenal Communications Director, is someone who brings her fun-loving spirit everywhere she goes. She’s mindful, headstrong, and instantly lights up any room she walks into. Oh, and not to mention she’s absolutely BRILLIANT too. Miss Mirkarimi is someone who’ll listen to every story you have to tell, even if it’s whimsical and aimless. Mahmoud, our extraordinary Financial Director, is someone who truly deeply cares, whether it be about friendships, aspirations, or Matthew McConaughey. Mahmoud isn’t quick to judge and loves every person for who they really are. He’s not just here to help punch numbers in a spreadsheet - he’s here to genuinely grow in his relationships, grow as an individual, and occasionally make burgers for us on his electric grill. As much as we want to hold onto Mahmoud and Armita for a lifetime, we know that right now, a new season is calling them. To Armita and Mahmoud, mom and dad of Hearts to Heroes, we love you. You are our heroes, and you have changed our lives in all the ways we never expected.
Haley Chan, Executive Director
Here are their parting words:
A year ago today, I had to google the meaning of “desensitization.” I needed an answer, a clear-cut definition. What is this word that everyone seems to associate with? I hated what I found on the internet. Desensitization: a process that diminishes emotional responsiveness to a negative, aversive or positive stimulus after repeated exposure to it. My aversion to this finding repulsed me because I understood its meaning so clearly. The whirlwind of 2020 enclosed my being and yet, I felt nothing.
Now, a year later, I’m growing more distant from associating with this definition that haunted me. A big part of the reason why is Hearts to Heroes. I got to connect with people all over my community during a time where everyone rippled in disconnection. Delivering care packages or PPE became the intermediary to me feeling again. I learned to belly laugh during our virtual board meetings, cry at the wholesome deliveries, and make friends with essential workers like Heather and Jacqueline. Most of all, I discovered that I want to live intensely. Boldly. Without regard for borders or intransigent lines. When feeling lonely or disconnected, I think of the time where the word “desensitization” infested my brain and how, like a pesky inconvenience, I worked to connect again.
Connections are relationships and relationships are two-sided. Put effort into feeling. Work on your friendships. It takes time but the prospect and outcome of living intensely is so worth it. Find your own care packages and feel. What else is there to do if we don’t?
Armita Mirkarimi, Communications Director
Around this same time of year five years ago I gave my eight grade promotion speech. Now there is very little an eighth grade boy, slightly hindered by his nerves, can say that will leave his audience’s lives forever changed. But in my closing remark—a quote by Aristotle on the relevance of goal-setting to the life of man—the life to be forever changed was my own. Back then in coming to terms with the closing of a chapter in life, and the beckoning of another, I would have never imagined I would be here, leaving behind a vibrant community of goodness-loving people in pursuit of my dreams in New York City while considering the same quote I thought elaborately foolish five years back. However, today when speaking of man as “a goal-seeking animal,” I see before me the obstacles our Hearts to Heroes family overcame during a global pandemic with thought and determination to be the reason our everyday heroes smile when receiving a care package, or smile when posing for a picture with a shipment of PPE, or smile when feeling a renewed faith in the power of ‘we’ because of the work that YOU, our volunteers, have done. I’ve learned to never underestimate the impact our collaboration can inspire, because I’ve learned that there’s always room for care, empathy, love, and passion. Even though my role is affirmatively ending, it feels as though my responsibility to care and help is only starting. That mindset, rooted in just the most basic belief in the humanity that adorns each and every one of our characters, is exactly what I gained from Hearts to Heroes, and is exactly what completes the image of the man I pictured being while on stage five years ago.
Mahmoud Ali, Financial Director
Thank you for making Hearts to Heroes feel like home. Now, go and blow them away at Dartmouth and NYU.
