Forum is a family, at least while you’re a student at Community High School. The four years you spend with the same people and teacher is an essential part of the CHS experience. But to get these students to connect, forums have proven that food ties everyone together.

Forum lunch is an idea that has come up to include more time into the forums’ schedules. Eating meals with others is something special. It feels like you feel so many emotions at once, there’s not just one word you can use to say how you’re feeling.

As a dual enrollment student, Sadie Barber gets to examine the difference between Community and Skyline. She gets to truly see that when it comes to connecting their students, according to her, Community has a tight-knit student body because of forum, and specifically forum food.

“I think when we generally think of school, it’s just like academics and stuff, but Community is different,” Barber said. “Especially with our forums being like your family at school. Sharing meals at school brings sort of a familial energy that you wouldn’t get the opportunity to have at other places.”

The familial atmosphere is seen more often in forums that do share food in some way. For Charlotte Rotenberg, it’s her love language. It allows her to show how much she cares.

Rotenberg, a member of the Brent Forum, connects most to other students in her forum through homemade goods. The making of muffins and cakes uplifts the mood of Rotenberg, especially after a long school day. “The other day one of our freshmen, Willow, brought in pumpkin chocolate chip muffins after a long day,” Rotenberg said. “It was a Tuesday at 2:30 p.m., and everyone eating muffins really brought us together.”

Rotenberg loves to connect with different groups of people and keeps an open mind when it comes to introductions. She also indulges in opportunities that include interactive activities with new forumettes.

“Last year, during Forum Day, I had a cookie competition with one of my forumettes to see who made the better chocolate chip cookie,” Rotenberg said. “Unfortunately, I did not win. But I think I can redeem myself with brownies.”

But for some forums, it hasn’t been easy. CHS math teacher Luciana Qu’s forum struggled for the first few years coming back to school after COVID-19 and found it hard to create a family — that was until they started forum lunch.

“I feel like students get an opportunity to actually socialize during that time,” Qu said. “They’re enjoying the food that other students are taking. It feels like everybody’s contributing to the forum and I think that that is building a more positive environment and culture for us.

I think that people look forward to coming to the forum at least every Thursday, because they know there’s going to be food and it’s just encouraging to see the students want to come and be a part of this.”

Forum lunch must be the standard. It allows students to talk to students they wouldn’t normally. Food is what makes a forum’s bond.