Nitya Devisetti is a high school student
with a passion for serving her community. When COVID-19 first hit the states, Nitya saw the need for masks in her community and a non-profit called Ma(s)king a Difference was born. Since then, Ma(s)king a Difference has provided over 10,000 masks to volunteers, medical personnel, and other essential community workers. With her team of fellow students, including Executive Board members Nikhil Pasumarthi and Sohum Phadke, Nitya has now connected more than ten chapters worldwide with a passion for making a difference.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Nitya Devisetti recalls what led her to start Ma(s)king a Difference
- How Sohum became a part of the team
- How to start your own Ma(s)king a Difference Chapter
- Common misconceptions about distribution and management
- Nitya talks about being a role model
- The importance of transparency
- Gamifying the volunteer system
- The apps and technology that have helped Nitya spread her powerful message
- The team shares their strengths and weaknesses
- Where to learn more about Ma(s)king a Difference
In this episode…
Making a difference in your community can start with a single idea. For Nitya Devisetti, it started with something that we’ve been hearing a lot about lately: masks.
After seeing a need for masks in her community, she founded the non-profit, volunteer-based organization called Ma(s)king a Difference. With the help of volunteers across the globe, she has helped students and community members provide masks for those in need.
In this episode of Watching Paint Dry, host Greg Owens sits down with the Founder of Ma(s)king a Difference, Nitya Devisetti, and her team. They discuss what motivated them to start and join Ma(s)king a Difference and the learning curves they had to overcome. Nikhil shares his biggest challenge as a coordinator and Sohum describes finding his passion. As they discuss their strengths and weaknesses, their ability to pivot and lead by example is a team attribute to awe anyone of any age.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
- Greg Owens on LinkedIn
- McCarthy Painting
- McCarthy Painting Contact No.: 415-383-2640
- McCarthy Painting Email Address: info@mccarthypainting.com
- Nitya Devisetti on LinkedIn
- Ma(s)king a Difference
- Ma(s)king a Difference on Instagram
- Ma(s)king a Difference Email Address: maskingadifference2020@gmail.com
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by McCarthy Painting, where we serve commercial and residential clients all around the San Francisco Bay area.
We’ve been in business since 1969 and served companies such as Google, Autodesk, Abercrombie & Fitch, FICO, First Bank, SPIN, and many more.
If you have commercial facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area and need dependable painters, visit us on the web at www.mccarthypainting.com or email info@mccarthypainting.com, and you can check out our line of services and schedule a free estimate by clicking here.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:03
Welcome to the Watching Paint Dry podcast where we feature today’s top facility managers, property managers and property owners talking about the challenges and opportunities of managing hundreds of thousands of square feet of real estate and how to beautify and improve their properties. Now, let’s get started with the show.
Greg Owens 0:33
Hello, everyone out there. This is Greg Owens with the Watching Paint Dry Podcast, where we’ve been having these discussions with facilities managers, property owners and building owners throughout the San Francisco Bay Area in this this time of pandemics. It is October 16. And this message is sponsored by my company McCarthy Painting, it was started by my uncle Fred McCarthy in 1969. And we paint commercial buildings throughout the whole San Francisco Bay Area. We’ve done work for Google, Autodesk Abercrombie and Fitch, h&m, and many, many other companies. If you’d like to learn more, just go to info at McCarthypainting.com, or on the internet, on the web at McCarthypainting.com. Today, we’re going to do a little bit of a different conversation than we’ve had in the past. And I’m really excited about this, because I heard about these young people from a facilities manager. And I’d like to introduce introduce, so hum the PA Yeah, and, and, well, I loved your guys’s story, you guys started like making community masks are bringing it together community to make masks, right? Um, well, let’s jump in. And I’d like to learn more about what whose idea this was and how this came up. Good. Go ahead, whenever you start,
Nitya Devisetti 2:02
um, okay, I can start and then pass it on to the Nikhil or Sohum, so I’m back in May, I was noticing kind of a gap within the community. And like my friends, we were all six feet apart. We weren’t allowed to meet each other because of social distancing guidelines. And I was, and my mom and I were having a conversation in the car. And she was saying, Yeah, I donated masks to India, and I’m like donating money. I’m just to help my home there. And I was thinking like, she’s at 300 miles away from her hometown in India, and she’s still able to do something. So like, I want to do something in my home. Like, even though like there were six feet, this is like separating each of us. Like, that’s not too much to like, that’s not going to prevent someone from taking action, right. So I started Ma(s)king a Difference as like a website for people to sign up to either make masks or cards or just like help out in any way possible. So like, if they want to raise funds, because they don’t, they’re not really artistic, they could do that. Or if they want to manage the social media page, they could do that. So it was very open ended. I wanted to make it an inclusive platform. And so I sent out emails to the district and the schools in the area,
Greg Owens 3:16
and what and what community is this? So just in Cupertino, in Cupertino,
Nitya Devisetti 3:21
California, I just want to help my home town home city. So I sent emails to basically everyone I could reach and adults like parents and students, they immediately signed up, because it was kind of like a niche. People wanted to take action, but they didn’t know how. So immediately when they saw this opportunity, they started getting involved.
Greg Owens 3:41
All right, that’s awesome. And then how did you then how did you three? How do you guys know each other?
Sohum Phadke 3:48
Well, I know Nikhil and Nikhil Nitya from this organization. So I actually go to a different school, which is homestead High School. And I heard about this organization through our school spotlight. So basically Nitya reached out to all the schools in the Cupertino area, and that we were masking difference was on their mailing list. And I found out about this amazing organization. You know, I was sitting at home in March when I was wondering what can I do to help my community during this time, and I did my first Google search and I was like, Oh my god, I have to get on onto this. So I was hooked right away. And here we are now. Right? Right.
Nikhil Pasumarthi 4:27
So I personally joined Ma(s)king a Difference later than so long. I joined in July. And I found myself with this surplus time like and I wasn’t able to like figure out what to do with it. I saw so many people in my community like doing like separate things. And then when I came across Ma(s)king a Difference from like, word of mouth from my friend, I got really interested I searched up on Instagram and on their website and I just like I knew that I needed to be a part of this and I immediately joined as a fundraising coordinator originally.
Greg Owens 4:57
Right, right. And so So this is back in May. Yeah. And how did you get your How did you get started? Like, you know, did you just put a website up first you reached out first you gathered some money. What was the starting moments? Like?
Nitya Devisetti 5:15
Yeah, it was kind of like a light bulb. I’m kind of like Saturday evening, I was like, Okay, I’m gonna just get this started right away. So I stayed up an entire night actually, building the website. My dad saw my light and my room at like, 5am he walked it all groggy, he’s like, are you still up? And I just told him, I’m building the website. So the next morning, we sent out a donation link in to request funds, so we could buy materials, and provide it to the volunteers in case they signed up for mask making. Uh huh. So um, after that, I just sent out emails, I reached out to everyone I knew, hey, do you want to make masks, we’re trying to donate them to people in our city that are vulnerable. And then I also reached out to my principal, and other principals in the area to see if they want to advertise it to their students. And they were also enthusiastic. They’re like, finally someone is making something for the students to help out. So yeah, that’s how it kind of all got started.
Greg Owens 6:15
That’s, that’s, that’s, that’s so great. Yeah. And so you spent all night and you set up the donations link? And then the How did Where did you start feeling when the traction started happening? I want to get used to this. Yeah.
Nitya Devisetti 6:27
I used to check the forum every two minutes to see you as someone you signed up. And I was getting really excited for each new person. I used to text them back and forth, or email them back and forth, just because like, um, it’s kind of like an adrenaline or adrenaline rush like, Yes, finally, someone new is like taking part in this thing that I’m so passionate about. So yeah, it was it felt really amazing.
Greg Owens 6:51
That’s awesome. And then and then how soon did you join? Sohum?
Sohum Phadke 6:56
Um, I joined about a month after as a card creator. So I was making cards, and I was delivering them to Nitya door, and I was like, Oh, my God, this is amazing. How can I do more with this organization? So then Nitya reached out to me, and then she made me a fundraising coordinator. So I was helping raise funds to the PI, the materials needed to make these masks and cards. And then I became chapter leader after them.
Greg Owens 7:22
And tell me more about like, the cards like what is what is that concept?
Sohum Phadke 7:28
Yeah, so we make cards for all walks of life. So people who are homeless, on the streets, to people that are working in hospitals, or just naming you name it, and there’s probably a card made for them. So basically, they’re just supportive messages to let them know that there’s people in the community that are grateful for their sacrifice, quite literally. And I can actually tell you this story. Yesterday, when I was at a mass distribution event, there were these three cafeteria ladies working there, I was at a place where people were getting their food, and it was heavy traffic, and they’ve been working for six and a half hours in the sun. And no one bothered to appreciate their work. And so when I handed them the cards, they were just like, in tears, they were like, this is amazing, I can’t thank you enough. So the cards really play a big part in our organization, and show how grateful we are for them. That’s so great.
Greg Owens 8:25
Yeah, I can, I can see that. I mean, you see it every day, how people are just not noticing, like, sort of the people that are sort of behind the scenes in a lot of ways, right, that are that are working really, really hard. Right. So like, I’m a painting contractor, and we go into buildings and things like that at night, right to take care of and clean it and make it so that when when the employees show up on Monday morning, it’s all it’s a nice clean environment for them to do their good work, or we’re working for. It’s great because like we’re working for a biotech company right now. And I was telling the CEO of a biotech company, we’re in his house, and I was telling my painters like look, we make his house like really comfortable and feel really nice and and he enjoys his home so he can go back and cure cancer. Right and and that’s like my painters, like they get excited about that kind of thing. They can see like, Oh, yeah, this makes sense. Like, he’s smarter. He’s smart in that in that in that realm, right and so but we’re gonna take care of and like paint his house and make it look beautiful. So, like, what other stories have you guys come up with in this new so now it’s like, where are we at? We’re, since May, where is it now? And what kind of traction do you guys have?
Nitya Devisetti 9:44
Um, I can answer that. So right now we have 16 total chapters. And we’re in four different countries. So the US, India, Taiwan and Thailand. And we have Like, chapters throughout the US, so that’s why we have 16. So we have like hundreds of volunteers in each chapter. And so in the beginning, I actually just started in Cupertino, like I mentioned. And someone reached out to me, she went to school here, but then she moved to North Carolina. And she was like, I’m so interested in starting this in North Carolina, because, like, we need to give masks to people that are vulnerable in my home, too. Yeah. And I really sat there and thought about it like, okay, that means I have to spend time between my home and her home, like helping both of them. But then at the end of the day, I realized, like, if I have the power to help someone do the same thing in another community, why would I? So I sat in a call with her and a few other people that were also interested in starting in their own states. And I just walked them through my story, I developed this website, you don’t have to develop your own, you can just join ours. But I had to reach out to everyone I knew it took me hours, you’re basically going to have to talk to principals, you’re going to reach out to companies to see if they can donate some money. I just walked them through every challenge they could come across and how to face those challenges. And with that, they got started in their own communities. And they just grew too. So.
Greg Owens 11:21
Yeah. And we’re about so in the US, which which cities are you in?
Nitya Devisetti 11:27
Now? I’m Seattle, Washington and then in California, we have here in Cupertino. Then we also have San Joaquin County. So like Mountain House area. We also have East Bay, which is San Ramon, that area and then we have South Bay south, which is like Gilroy, Santa Cruz. And then Orange County, which is like LA. Oh, man, we have Austin, Texas. Um, uh, Elon, yeah. Aurora, Illinois, Broward County, Florida, Cary, North Carolina.
Forsyth County, Georgia.
Long Island, New York. And the list just keeps going. But yeah,
Greg Owens 12:08
that’s interesting, because that’s an eclectic mix of, of little small areas and some larger areas, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Nikhil? What, what’s your what’s your what is like, where are you at in the organization? At this point, let’s bring you into this a little more to
Nikhil Pasumarthi 12:26
Yeah, so like, as I said, I joined much later than nicaea, who founded it. And so home joined the month later, I joined Two months later, because I got, I suddenly got really interested because I didn’t know about this organization until a friend of mine started getting involved. And they told me about their experiences of the mask ambassador, light creating mass and, and I don’t have much going experience. So I decided to join the organization was like to make an impact as much as they could, because I was like, I became so quickly passionate about something that I never heard about before. And I have experienced from previous experience from fundraising and creating events. So I decided to join immediately as a fundraising coordinator. And through that, I was able to contact some small businesses and organizations to partner up for potential fundraisers and like donations.
Greg Owens 13:15
Right, right. And I can only imagine like with something like this, you just get people that get sort of excited, because you guys are very passionate about it.
Nitya Devisetti 13:26
Yeah, um, something that I learned is, when you have a common cause, like when you’re all when you all have an underlying goal, yeah, very similar, like minded people that you never even knew existed, all foreign, like all ethnicities, all religions, all ages, that none of that matters when you find a common goal, right. So I learned that very quick. And it was very inspiring to see.
Sohum Phadke 13:54
Yeah, we wouldn’t be here without our amazing mask ambassadors, they really work day in and day out for us to be able to do what we’re doing. So you know, that’s really where we have the most gratitude is their hard work.
Greg Owens 14:08
And tell me more about us. You mentioned this earlier. So the mask ambassadors, they’re the people that are actually making the masks.
Nitya Devisetti 14:15
Yeah. So Nikhil actually manages, um, mask ambassadors and card craters now, so he can expand on what the process is like,
Nikhil Pasumarthi 14:24
Yeah, go for it. Yeah. So yet, we have like forms on our website and on Instagram. So people, like, every few days, I get, like, every few days, I get like a bunch of volunteers who are interested in like, you know, like they’re, they’re trying to get as involved as possible as like, just like me, and I it makes me so happy because like, there’s, there’s so much interest and from asking ambassadors for example. Some people use our own materials, some people use our materials so we collect all the materials and provide it to them to make their own machines and we we pay for all these materials. From donations from our community, to like, we were really appreciative of all the volunteers who, like take the time to put in the effort, and like, communicate with us. And for card creators. They make their own cards and for like, specific people that they want to donate the cards to me give it to us, Donnie. Oh, nice, nice. And, and they’re making them in both the cards and the masks as much as they can. Or as Oh,
Nitya Devisetti 15:27
yeah. So um, originally, when I started this, I was like, 10 per week. So people had like, cuz we couldn’t give them unlimited time, because then I wouldn’t know when to collect all of them, like donated to places. So as I said, when you sign up 10 per week after you get started after I give you materials, and in the beginning, I had to cut all the materials and put it into a Ziploc bag, go to people’s homes, drop it off in front of their doorstep. But as more people started coming, more people started volunteering. They’re like, there is one lady that takes all 50 yards of fabric 200 yards of elastics. Wow, in like three to five days with her friends. She just distributes it among her friends. And then she makes it into kits of 20. So now what we do we just leave a Ziploc outside our doorstep, the volunteers come grab it. Oh, wow, they finished the 20 masks, and they just leave it in outside Nikhil’s house in the box that he has designated for them.
Greg Owens 16:26
Right. I love how much you guys are having to learn all about sort of distribution channels and delegating and those kinds of things. What has been some surprise other surprises like in the learning category? On your sort of entrepreneurship? Jump here?