SHS celebrates democracy at BBYO election night party

Prior to the late-night announcement of Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election, Solon High School teamed up with regional chapters of the Jewish youth group BBYO to host an election night party at SHS from 6 to 9 p.m. The event was open to the secular student body in addition to BBYO members.

“We have been talking with our teens for a long time since the end of last year about doing an election night event, and then it really built into this bigger event to bring in a celebrity and to make it something big at a high school,” said Lindsey Rosenberg, BBYO senior regional director.

Rosenberg oversaw the committee of teens who helped plan the event, three of which attend SHS. She also coordinated the appearance of “Orange is the New Black” star Jackie Cruz, who spoke at the event about her childhood and dream of becoming an actress. Cruz also answered questions from the audience and hosted a meet-and-greet.

“The event is going pretty good, everyone looks happy,”  SHS sophomore Mark Liner said.

Liner was a part of the event planning committee as both a Solon student and BBYO member in the AZA chapter. He worked to recruit SHS students to attend the event by hanging up flyers and speaking with history teachers.

“I did a pretty good job,” he said. “Although I think I could’ve gotten more people.”

Roughly 200 students registered to attend the event online for a $15 fee, and even more paid as walk-ins at the actual event. The ticket price included food, drinks, and games such as presidential trivia and corn hole.

“This is really our dive into being more involved in civic engagement,” Rosenberg said. “This is a newer event for us. We really hope that [the teens are] going to be excited about civic engagement, that they’re going to be motivated to vote in the future.”

SHS Young Democrats club president and senior Nick Sattele, another member of the planning committee, also stressed the importance of voting. He explained that even though he is not yet 18, he believes “civic engagement is very important for young people.” He dedicated time to campaigning for Hillary Clinton and other democratic candidates such as Michael Wager and Ted Strickland.

“I like to think that through the work that I’ve done in the past six or eight months will actually influence the election as if I did vote,” he said. “Regardless of the result, I hope that we never have an election like this. We have two candidates that are very unfavorable, and I want to make sure that in the future we have candidates who people actually love and who people rally behind.”