Developed by the senior class council, “Seniors Supporting Seniors” offers exclusive rewards for seniors attending events such as the homecoming football game and musical. Though the project has so far only applied to these two events, the class council aims for it to continue throughout the rest of the school year.
Senior class president Netta Wang says, “We wanted something that could bring people together and encourage them to go see things that they might not have seen before. If someone hasn’t seen a musical before, we really want to make sure that they [saw] one before they [graduated].”
Seniors at the homecoming football game on Nov. 14 received free red and black beaded necklaces and bubble bottles at the “seniors only” section. Seniors who went to the first performance of “Into the Woods” on Nov. 19 received free roses to give to seniors in the cast, crew or orchestra pit. As an additional incentive, seniors were able to enjoy exclusive balcony seating.
Junior Danny Halawi believes that the rewards for seniors are too insufficient to make a difference. “I don’t think they are enough,” he says. “Typically, seniors attend events depending on [whether or not] they want to go. If a football game was fifteen dollars versus seven dollars, it wouldn’t matter, because a senior shows up to the game [because] they want to, not [because] it’s cheap.”
However, Wang points out the benefits of smaller rewards, saying, “We understand that it’s not a huge bonus, and it’s just for those on the edge of deciding whether or not to go. This will kind of persuade them to go and also reward them for going. This was just a test run. Hopefully in the future we can have bigger activities and bigger rewards. But we don’t want people to go to the musical just because they are going to get some really big prize for it. We want them to go because they want to support the seniors and also get something because of that.”
“[Teacher Katherine] Ward initially thought of the idea of creating Seniors Supporting Seniors,” says Wang. “We were brainstorming, and we really wanted something that was easy to do and would encourage people to come together and support each other. We had a good amount of money, and we were just thinking of all the different options and she came up with this idea.”
Ward drew inspiration from her own high school experiences, according to Wang. “She said that you can still see the current adults that never fit in or felt like they never fit in during high school. They will admit that and say that it has kind of followed them throughout life because high school is when you really start to feel that bond between people that you grow up with,” says Wang. “I think that made a big impact on us. We wanted to make sure that no one left Aragon feeling like that.”
