Club Fair Provides Students With Accessible Participation

As the loud campaigning to join clubs intensifies, one thing is for sure: Community High School is not short of enthusiastic and involved students.

Community offers a wide variety of clubs and extracurriculars. On Sept. 18, the club fair took place in the second floor Craft Theatre. It was a place where students showed off their club, and tried to recruit new members. “I was already planning on signing up for the Poetry Club and I wanted to see if anything else would appeal to me,” said Dylan Hearn, Community sophomore. It was a great place for students to find out what group are available.

As the Club Fair began, Maggie Mihaylova, founder of Ski and Snowboard Club, was not shy with the mic as she lured in potential members of her club. The concept for this club originated in a conversation with her teacher, Matt Johnson, reminiscing about the old ski and snowboard club.

“It’s a sport that people in Michigan don’t appreciate enough, so I thought, let’s start a club for those people who appreciate it,” Mihaylova said.

Soon after, Sadie Zinn and Ella Mosher proudly campaigned for their new club, the Service Club. The concept came from Zinn’s love for community service and volunteer work. She previously did community service in Detroit, but wanted an outlet for more accessible volunteer work closer to home.

“Our school doesn’t have a volunteer club which I thought was kind of weird because [the school’s name is] Community; we should be all about giving back to our community,” Zinn said.

At the back of the fair was a familiar club, but with a new name. Advocates in Change and Equality (ACE) co-founder and co-president, Clarence Collins, is passionate about changing how we view race and gender. Previously called GRIT, this newly branded club is back for another year of solving these race and gender issues. This club started with influences from other clubs such as the Diversity Club and SEED, a club started at the Neutral Zone. Collins wants to take these clubs’ principles and, instead of only talking about them, wants to apply action.

“Discussing topics like this makes it a lot easier and uncomfortable for people, and sometimes being uncomfortable is good,” Collins said.

At the front of the fair, equipped with signs, posters and handouts was QSA (Queer Straight Alliance), a club focused on discussing and solving queer issues. Sonny Newman, president of QSA, aims for equality and inclusivity.

“I want to make everyone feel welcomed and accepted and loved in whatever situation they find themselves in,” Newman said.  

“I want to do a little more about issues that everyone sees in the world relating to queer people and working to fix those especially in community,” Newman said. To them, clubs like QSA mean education. When they first joined QSA, they felt they had a good education on the subject of these issues, but through the years in the club, Newman’s knowledge grew. “As I’ve gone through the years of this club, I’ve realized that not everything is black and white,” Newman said.  

This year’s club fair opened doors for many to side of Community where grades don’t matter—a side where getting involved and making a difference is just as important.