Leadership hosts annual One Love Week

Renaissance Leadership held One Love Week for the fourth year in a row from Feb. 11 to 15, celebrating romantic, student, friend, community and staffulty love.

While One Love Week was inspired by Valentine’s Day, it focused on many different aspects of love, and featured romantic love on Monday Feb. 11 instead of Feb. 14.

“The main mission was that everybody felt loved on campus and that nobody was excluded,” said senior Jenna Heath, a coordinator of One Love Week. “We wanted to make sure that everyone felt loved with friends, the staffulty, [and] especially themselves as well, because there’s all different ways of expressing love.”

In an effort to include all students, Romantic Love Day featured Aragon’s Health and Wellness counselors, who led discussion on all kinds of relationships, including romantic.

“Our Romantic Love Day was not so much about celebrating love but about raising awareness for healthy versus unhealthy relationships,” said senior Renaissance Leadership student Alison Lee.

On Tuesday Feb. 12, Leadership’s student announcers handed out paper hearts in each fifth period class that would be redistributed on Staffulty Love Day. Students anonymously wrote the names of administrators, counselors and teachers and what they love about them.

English teacher James Daniel appreciated the notes.

“It was nice to get a bunch of notes saying that I’m having some effect as a teacher,” Daniel said. “It’s nice to know that you’re appreciated.”

Students also enjoyed the opportunity to acknowledge their teachers.

“It was kind of nice that [you] got to show which teacher you appreciate,” said sophomore Kelton King. “It would have been a bit better if I could’ve done it for more than one.”

For Community Love Day on Thursday Feb. 14, Leadership worked with student a cappella group Treble with Angels to bring music in the halls around campus.

In preparation for One Love Week, each day’s events were coordinated by smaller groups within Leadership. Each commission coordinated one day’s activities, focusing on different aspects of love.

“We come up with what kind of love we’re going to have for each day, and we split them up by commission,” Lee said. “Health and Wellness is all about mental health, so we were the ones that did healthy relationships, and we have Student [Recognition] for self love because it’s all about the students.”

In addition to these activities, Leadership had hoped to collaborate with student clubs, including Bring Change to Mind and the Gender Sexuality Awareness club. However, due scheduling challenges, they were unable to do so this year.

“[Leadership is] in class every single day during fourth period … whereas, [Bring Change to Mind] meets once a week during lunch on their own time, so it’s difficult to find times to meet up to discuss,” Lee said.

When organizing for the week, the weather posed issues in both the logistics of the activities and student participation.

“We do everything in center court, and [when] it’s raining we can’t put tables out [and] nobody’s outside,” Lee said. “There was just nobody out there because of the rain and cold.”