With health mandates and online schooling planned through the fall semester, many are feeling isolated at home. With 57 unique clubs, Aragon students now have a way to interact with their peers virtually.
Junior Amber Yeh is the president of Nanoseed Club, an initiative to raise awareness about life in rural China and to raise funds for impoverished people living there.
“[Nanoseed Club] mainly… cover[s] how daily life is in rural China and … connect[s us] with the Nanoseed organization for raising funds,” Yeh said. “These funds … will go towards people in rural China [with] low interest student [loans] and business loans.”
“Through [the] club fair and through talking to people about joining my club, I saw people from different grade levels coming in”
For the students who planned on starting a new club during online school, the process was lengthy and the officers faced some challenges. Aragon clubs must have a staff advisor for their clubs, but in a virtual world, this has become an even harder challenge with the new one teacher to one club policy. Yeh faced difficulties finding a teacher to advise her club.
“It took … around a week or so to be able to get a set Zoom [and] date for our club,” Yeh said.
Senior Anali Ghaseminia is president of Let’s Talk Social Issues Club, which aims to discuss and educate about social issues around the globe.
“[Social issues] are more important right now than ever … [since] current sophomores, juniors and seniors, [have not taken Ethnic Studies], [and] it’s important for us to all be a little bit more socially aware, [especially with what happened] over the summer,” Ghaseminia said. “[In] the past few months, I feel like a lot more people are interested [in social issues] and want to know more, so I feel this is a good club … to start.”
Like Yeh, Ghaseminia expressed similar concerns with finding a club advisor when starting her club.
“Every person either turned us down or didn’t respond to emails, which is obviously understandable, because everybody is so busy,” Ghaseminia said. “Eventually, we got Ms. Clothier, which we’re really grateful for.”
Many clubs also faced the difficulty of figuring out how they would hold club meetings remotely. Freshman Samantha Crellin is the vice president of Art, Illustration and Digital Media Club, which has planned various lessons and activities to help people refine their art skills, primarily focusing on digital art. However, her club struggled with distributing materials to members.
“If we were at school, we’d get everyone drawing tablets, but you can’t exactly distribute material like that when it’s online,” Crellin said. “[We can’t just say], ‘Hey, I’m going to send you a $40 drawing tablet through the mail, take good care of it.’”
Creating a friendly atmosphere online was another objective when clubs planned out their meetings.
“I already know it [will] be really hard trying to become really close to people in the club,” Yeh said. “I plan on doing a lot of games and interactive activities with everybody so that people get to know each other a lot more, and [we’ll] just try to make it as close to how we would do it in person.”
Creating a suitable club atmosphere was also a major focus for Ghaseminia.
“We definitely want to leave it a little open-ended, so [we] want to ask … people for their opinions,” Ghaseminia said. “We don’t want it to be just us four [officers] talking. We want [club members] to have a bigger role.”
Despite the initial struggles, the officers have a hopeful outlook on their new clubs and are looking forward to connecting with people at school beyond those in their classes.
“Through [the] club fair and through talking to people about joining my club, I saw people from different grade levels coming in,” Ghaseminia said. “Those are people that I would have never really had the chance to talk to.”
As the possibility of reopening schools keeps changing, clubs are doing their best to create a welcoming and inspiring environment that will benefit all students during distance learning.
