For the last three weeks of March, PEER held a unity and tolerance campaign throughout the school. Unity week was from March 11-15th and consisted of spirit days, an advisory lesson, and a “Mix-It-Up” party in the cafeteria. The spirit days were Meme Monday, Extra-Terrestrial Tuesday, Around the World Wednesday, Tourist Thursday, and Mix-It-Up Friday. On Friday the 15th, they held a party in the cafeteria to promote unity with music, dancing, and a limbo contest. They covered the tables in colored paper, hung streamers and balloons, and put posters on the ends of the tables with conversation starters.
Junior Drew Gold dressed up on the spirit days because he thought it was a good show of school unity and spirit. “I decided to participate because I thought our school needed to become closer and have more overall spirit,” he said.
Senior Jacob Pond had similar sentiments, saying, “Helping with school spirit sets a good example and is fun.”
“My favorite day was Meme Monday because it had the most room for creativity and it seemed like it was the one everyone was most involved in,” said junior Jackson Mattingley.
“I liked the new ideas for spirit days, I feel like for homecoming you see the same spirit days every year, but this one was really interesting, yet captured the theme of unity,” said senior Catherine Janicki on why she participated.
“Unity Week is important because we have many students from various backgrounds. Celebrations to highlight who we are and what makes us unique actually bring us closer. No one knows your story until you tell them! Unity celebrations provide a storytelling platform,” said PEER sponsor Mrs. Valeria Austin.
From the 18th to the 22nd, they also organized Tolerance week, where they set up a photo booth that students could take pictures in front of and handed out bracelets that read, ‘Peace Begins With Tolerance.’ PEER then printed out the pictures and set them up in a mural to show all the different faces of the school and students were able to take the pictures of themselves.
“[The purpose of the campaign] was to make the school aware of tolerance and inclusiveness. My favorite part was making the photo booth and taking everyones pictures,” said PEER member and senior Taylor Nodland, who helped plan the campaign.
