He’s also raised $25,000 to fund his Habitat for Humanity team’s work-trip to East Demararra, Guyana, and built homes for inner-city communities in Boston, Norristown, N.J. and Germantown, Penn.

During the school year and even during breaks, his activities have taken him nearly everywhere except his room.

“We had a double sophomore year and I always bragged that I had the largest single on campus,” Hornstine says. “He was always waking up at six in the morning to do City Step, coming home at three in the morning after a long day of play rehearsal or whatnot.”

Krish’s focus on the connections between people extends beyond his extracurriculars to his academics—and to his appearance. His unconventional social studies thesis focused on how the clowns at Children’s Hospital Boston bring joy and laughter to a normally sterile environment. And he hopes his curls will someday soon make a fine wig for a child with cancer.

Krish will spend next year in Durban, South Africa, on a $25,000 Richardson Fellowship in public service to start up a camp based on the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp’s mission of providing a place for seriously ill children. The difference is that in South Africa, orphans, street children and children with HIV will comprise a significantly higher proportion of the campers.

After that, he may work with Teach for America, which offered him a position, but he also wants to finish his pre-med requirements. He’s still figuring things out, he says.

But his friends say they’ve figured out at least a few things.

“He’s one of those people who I feel like is going to end up famous for some reason some day,” Colgan says. “He’s just such an exuberant personality who wants to touch as many people as he can in his life that, somehow, he’s just going to end up in a prominent position.”

And he will still be welcoming one and all to his neighborhood.

—Staff writer Juliet J. Chung can be reached at juliet_chung@post.harvard.edu.