For the past few months, you might have spotted short articles of Sacred Heart students and teachers on Facebook and The International under the title, “Humans of Sacred Heart” or “HOSH”. These short weekly articles, give members of the Sacred Heart community an opportunity to learn more about each other, which is exactly the goal of Kenzie Phillips (9), the founder and writer of HOSH. This interview-based article will give you an insight on HOSH.

What/who inspired you to start HOSH?

I first came up with starting HOSH in 8th grade after I saw ASIJ’s Humans of ASIJ page. I actually brought up the idea of starting HOSH in middle school student council, but the other students were slightly skeptical about it. I figured this was because not many people in middle school knew about Humans of New York. However, when I entered high school, I realized that more people understood the concept as they are more familiar with Humans of New York. I tried to bring up the idea again, and this time, a lot more people were willing to accept my idea.

How is your project going?

To be honest, it was really hard at first because I tried to get a group together but it ended up being a one-man project. However, it has been getting easier to manage. I’m really glad that I’m doing it because, through HOSH, I’ve met so many new people and learned so much about people I hardly knew before. Even though I still continue to face some problems, I’m really enjoying the process.

How do you choose which person to interview every week?

I tend to lean towards people who are “in the shadows”- people who normally don’t get that much attention. It’s more interesting this way because, if you read HOSH, you actually learn something new about someone who you didn’t really know anything about before. Or, if I’m walking around school and I see someone doing something that catches my eye, I go up to them and ask them what they’re doing. And, if they have an interesting story to tell, I ask them if I can write an article about them.

What sort of questions do you ask students/teachers who are being interviewed?

I like to start off with a simple question like, “What’s up?”, or, if I’m interviewing a teacher, “How are you doing?”. I then go on to asking them very general questions- questions that usually might sound overly simple and uninteresting. For example, I tend to ask the person who I’m interviewing to simply “tell me a story.” I realized that the most basic questions can sometimes bring out the most interesting stories.

What are your future plans? What would you like to accomplish going forward?

My main and biggest goal is to start a HOSH club! Even though I like working alone, I want to start a club and make HOSH more of a team activity. Through HOSH, I think that students will get to get to know each other better. Another one of my goals is to make HOSH more well known. I really believe that it’s a great site to make us closer. And I would personally like to keep writing articles and getting to know more and more people from our school.