Upper School students attended the club assembly and club fair during PLB on Friday, Sept. 28. The assembly portion lasted for the first 30 minutes and the fair took up the second half. During the assembly, leaders from each club gave a brief overview about what their club is about, when the club meets, and what happens at each club meeting.
At the club fair, each club had a display that gave a more detailed overview about the mission of the club and a sign-up sheet where students could write down their names to receive emails about future meetings and different projects and activities that the clubs plan to work on.
A total of 33 clubs had booths at the club fair and presented at the assembly. Clubs ranged from clubs about academic interests, such as senior Kevin Wan’s KO Math Team, to clubs that are meant to bring people together that have a shared passion of non-academic interests, such as junior John McLaughlin’s KO Car Club.
Almost half of the clubs that were at the fair just started this year. For example, senior Claudia Petrie created The KO Community Outreach Club, which garnered 44 new members at the fair. The club meets at least once a month to discuss future plans and ideas.
“The goal of the club is to foster connections between KO students and the Greater Hartford community through community service and outreach,” Claudia said.
The club plans to help local charities, such as Loaves and Fishes, who Claudia has worked with in the past, and any other charities that students would like to get involved with.
Old clubs also returned. The KO Green Team, led by senior McKenzie Piehl, is continuing with more projects. On Oct. 19, the KO Green Team held a Trout Brook cleanup where they picked up the trash that people have left behind.
The point of the cleanup was to spread awareness of the issue of single-use waste on our planet, which leach toxic chemicals into the Earth. Almost all of the waste picked up during the cleanup was single-use plastic materials. “The Earth’s ground is recognized as a landfill for us humans. I decided to initiate a trash-cleanup for the entire school to be a part of, and my main goal was to get people aware of how much waste is ending up on Earth’s grounds and not in trash cans,” McKenzie said.
The Green Team has partnered with 4Ocean, an ocean conservancy company, and will sell 4Ocean’s bracelets to promote Ocean Conservation.
The Green Team is hoping to do more clean-ups in the fall and spring, and they’re planning a secret event for Earth Day in April.
The club fair also gives new students the chance to see what extracurricular activities KO has to offer.
“The club fair is an important opportunity for underclassmen to get involved in various student initiatives at KO, and find something of their interest. It brings the community together and highlights some of the wonderful ideas of their peers,” junior Esha Kataria said.
