"Michelle Huntley posted that her 7-year-old daughter, a student at the school, said Qawasmi was "nice to everyone...always kind and said 'hello' to everyone. He knew everyone.""
""Van Meter Elementary will not be the same without Omar's smiling, happy, warm and always friendly face around. He brightened everyone's mood and genuinely cared about people," Emily Baratzadeh said in a memorial post."
""He treated kids as though they were family members, and I will truly miss seeing him around. He made a huge impact during his short time.""
"Friends and family remembered Qawasmi as "a young man with dreams and ambitions which he worked hard to achieve," often working two jobs to do so."
Omar Azzam Qawasmi was born in San Jose on Jan. 9, 1992, to Susan Navarrete Qawasmi and Azzam Qawasmi. He graduated from Evergreen High School in 2010 and earned a bachelor's degree in recreation, parks and tourism administration from San Francisco State in 2015. He served as director of the Van Meter Clubhouse, worked as a para-educator while pursuing a teaching credential, and directed summer camps as a Los Gatos-Saratoga Recreation site supervisor. He died on Nov. 21, 2025, after a solo car accident and was buried at Oak Hill Memorial Park on Dec. 11, 2025. Parents, friends, and family remembered him as kind, protective of students, hardworking, and deeply involved in the community.
Read at The Mercury News
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