Helping the community has always been a priority for the staff and leaders at Bryant High School. So, from Dec. 8 to Dec. 12, Truli Bates, the Student Senate sponsor, hosted a Christmas tree competition for the clubs of BHS, combining holiday spirit and community service to help provide meals for students in need. In this competition, club members decorated a Christmas tree while also gathering canned food donations for families in need during the winter season.
Clubs were also given the task of adding their own element to their tree. That element was to help represent their club and the things that they do to add on to the uniqueness of the school.
“Yeah, I think that often there are a lot of clubs that are very forward-facing, and you hear a lot about them, like NHS, Beta Club, different bigger clubs like that can help students in the future,” Bates said. “But clubs that are FCCLA, FBLA, things like that, are more specific to career paths or certain interests.”
This competition helps to show the Bryant community how many clubs there really are at BHS by shining light onto those clubs that are less recognized at school.
On Dec. 19, Family and Consumer Science (FACS) was named as the winner of the tree decoration contest. Their tree was decorated with plastic foods, toy babies and other things made by the club members and leaders, representing the meaning behind their club and dazzling the 3rd floor hallway with their colorful design choices and creativity.
As a result of their win, they earned a Chick-fil-A breakfast hosted in the cafeteria. The overall top three donor winners were awarded with VISA gift cards ranging from $50 to $100.
Emily Warburton, the Family and Consumer Science teacher and a participant in this year’s competition, made a tree based off of everything that has to do with the class she teaches.
“I thought that it would be fun because I teach so many different subjects in FACS that there was going to be lots of fun ornaments, like food, babies, just all kinds of things,” Warburton said.
Although the competition resulted in a win for FACS, the process that went along with preparing, planning and decorating didn’t go as smoothly as they had anticipated.
“I mean, getting it from building 15 up to building ten, we were a little nervous that things were gonna fall off,” Warburton said.
Despite the challenges, the event’s focus of bringing students in clubs together to support the community was prevalent throughout the competition.
“Our largest goal of the Student Senate is to serve our community. Our school first, but then our community, and we have created a food pantry in our classroom closet,” Bates said. “And so at this event, students are donating canned foods to our closet to help the community.”
