Getting involved: The Cedar Shoals club fair
On Thursday, Jan. 26, Cedar Shoals held a club fair in the old gym for freshmen and sophomores, consisting of 33 of Cedar’s many clubs and extracurriculars represented by student leaders promoting their clubs.
“Cedar has outside and inside clubs and those could be held by teachers or support staff. We also have outside sources, like clubs involving UGA,” graduation coach Valencia Thornton, organizer of the club fair, said.
Freshman Derriana Smith appreciated the fair, saying it gave her new opportunities to get involved.
“(The club fair) has helped me join a lot of clubs that will help me out in the future and things I’m interested in,” Smith said.
Clubs have influenced students to join with games, flyers, candy, dancing and uniforms.
“It (the club fair) has influenced me to join. Everybody has done so well with their presentations and how they put everything together and how they explain their ideas. So they did really well representing,” sophomore Siniyah Huntley said.
Counselor Monica Quinones, representing the Genders and Sexualities Alliance (GSA), likes how the club fair shows students that there are safe spaces for people like them who share interests.
“We’ve had a lot of students come by who didn’t even know that we existed and so it’s been really great to let students know that there’s a lot of opportunity to get involved,” Quinones said.
With GSA, Quinones says many students have benefitted by discovering new opportunities and making connections with other students at after school meetings and activities.
“I think this definitely helps students by getting them connected with other students who are like minded and who are part of the community, I think that is a really great thing. And also providing them with leadership opportunities since it is a student led organization,” Quinones said.
This was the second time since Thornton has worked here that the club fair has been held. This was Thornton’s first time organizing and launching the club fair, and she hopes to hold it again next year.
“A lot of work just went into getting the information from the advisors, and making sure that the information was correct and then making sure that the set up of the rotation is correct for the teachers to bring students in to walk around,” Thornton said.
Cedars’s clubs offer a wide range of opportunities for students. Organizations include spaces to help different minority groups thrive, such as BEE club, GSA and M.E. club, as well as places where students can pursue their interests such as book club and art club.
Senior Ashley Adams represented BEE Club at the fair. She feels that the BEE club gives the opportunity for young women to have a safe space when moving up to high school.
“There are many appeals when joining the (BEE) club, such as having an open drama free environment, and learning leadership skills, as well as social skills,” Adams said.
Sophomore Nolan Debalski was influenced to join Work Based learning club at the fair.
“Work based learning is a good way to earn money and get high school credits as well while only attending part time at Cedar,” Debalski said.
Many students and teachers were impressed with how the club fair turned out. Ms. Thornton was pleased with how many students showed up, with her planning being a success.
“We promoted this event through our social media platforms, Instagram, and Instagram stories, word of mouth, emailing students and teachers, and hanging flyers around campus,” Thornton said.
The Club fair succeeded in opening student’s eyes at what the school has to offer and helping underclassmen meet teachers and students like them.
“It just promotes and builds relationships. It promotes unity in the school this way. It allows students to meet other students that they would never have anything in common with. So it builds adult and student relationships. And then it introduces interests that students thought that never would be a part of,” Thornton said.
