Aragon’s senior class held a class fundraiser by selling tickets to see the San Francisco Giants face off against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sept. 11. The Giants pulled off an 8-6 victory, but the senior class could not share in the win, as the game was delayed until 11 p.m.
Senior class council president Giorgio Petrakis comments on the idea to hold a Giants game fundraiser: “The senior class two years ago did it and made a lot of money off of it, and our class is looking to make money so we can have fun senior activities like prom or senior activities day,” he said. “We got a couple kids in leadership whose parents are involved with the Giants, so finding somebody to buy us tickets was not hard … and we’ve already done this fundraiser already so our vendors were already approved.”
Petrakis looks back on the success of the previous class activity, senior sunrise. “We did have, in fact, the biggest turnout of senior sunrise that anyone in administration has ever seen,” he said. “It just makes us more eager to have some more fun.”
With this event, he reports another success — however, not to the extent they were hoping. “We actually made money on the fundraiser … [but] we think we would have been more successful if the game had been on a Friday, which is the day we had it on originally. But there was a home football game interfering,” he said. He declined to provide specific data on the results.
The game itself ended up a disappointment, as first pitch was scheduled to be thrown at 7:15 p.m., but with clouds gathering throughout the afternoon and a thunderstorm pouring rain onto the field, it was delayed until almost 11 p.m. With the storm persisting, the teams took to the dugout after the first batter, with another three-hour delay until the game finally continued. It lasted until just past 2 a.m.
Students at the game left early during the delays, for reasons ranging from transportation limitations to the scheduling of the event, as it fell on a school night.
“It was too bad it rained, but either way, I got to hang with my friends, which is always fun. Even if the actual game didn’t go as planned,” said senior Iman Adibi, who left the game early. “I got the tickets because I wanted to help raise money for our class and have some fun with my friends.”
Senior Megan Shu shares Adibi’s motivation in going to the game, but not his optimistic outlook on the rain delay.
“I thought the idea of going to a Giants game with friends is a fun and great way to fundraise,” she said. “However, the game got rained out which was kind of disappointing since we made our way all the way to San Francisco and went straight home. Hopefully next time [such an] event won’t be rained out.”
Petrakis also examines the perceived apathy of the senior class towards school spirit.
“I think it just kind of became the culture over the three years that we spent here,” he said. “Like a norm that people stereotype our class as being maybe unspirited or undevoted to our school, or they don’t really care, but I think it’s under false pretenses that people say that and they’re just doubting our senior class.”
Despite the negative stereotypes perceived of his class, Petrakis concluded, “I definitely think that we’ve improved and we’ve seen that through ticket sales and participation on certain spirit days … [moreover] I was at a meeting with PTSO two weeks ago, and it was the biggest turnout for a PTSO meeting ever and so many parents are super eager to help out, and I think that is gonna be a huge part of having a successful senior year.”
