First semester is almost ending but that doesn’t mean that it is too late to join clubs to start the new year. SHS provides a wide variety of clubs that fits practically any passion or interest. Clubs at SHS provide new opportunities, new friends and fun experiences for any student.
Key Club
For those interested in gaining volunteer hours and giving back to the community, Key Club is one of the many clubs that provide opportunities.
Senior Co- President, Sasha Zahler believes Key Club is good to join because you can help the community in many ways..
“We did the canned food drive where all the proceeds go to our community hunger center [in Twinsburg],” Zahler said. “In October we sold boo grams and we gave all the proceeds to wildfire rehabilitation in Maui.”
Key Club also partners with Kiwanis, another organization that serves Solon and a sect of Key club, giving students an opportunity to meet more people from the community.
“It is a very interactive club and you can make a lot of friends,” Zahler said. “We also partner with other clubs sometimes, for example, in December we collaborate with SADD for our Polar Express event.”
Key Club provides a bonus in which you can join in on the activities wherever you wish.
“It can be as time consuming as you want it to be based on how much you want to volunteer, but volunteering is fun,” Zahler said.
Young Hearts Club
Similarly to Key Club, Young Hearts Club (YHC) is primarily volunteering. Students can go to Vitalia Senior Living Center and spend time with the elderly community of Solon.
Junior Co- president, Jessica Beres feels like YHC is a community building club.
“It is really a community service organization where we help kids and seniors connect by doing fun events like chair volleyball, Bingo or pumpkin painting,” Beres said.
YHC is good for building your resume.
“YHC is good to join because it is good for college applications by getting community service hours,” Beres said.
Spanish Culture Club
Spanish Culture Club is another club that allows students to potentially connect with their culture or other students in general. Senior President Juliet Dowling Coll’s ultimate goal is to inform students on not just the language but the culture as well.
“Every month we are focusing on a different country to expand what students get to learn instead of just focusing on just Spain or Mexico,” Dowling-Coll said. “We are trying to educate kids on how different Spanish cultures can be.”
Spanish Culture Club is centered around learning about Spanish speaking countries and what their culture looks like for them.
Dowling-Coll tries to implement fun ways to learn into her club.
“This year we are trying to plan a cooking meeting, where we will make empanadas. We are going to have a speaker come in to educate the students on indigenous masks that were worn in war during Costa Rica. We also are planning a field trip.”
Solon Hindu Association
Another club to broaden your knowledge is Solon Hindu Association, run by president and senior, Mahita Somanchi.
Somanchi hopes that the Solon Hindu Association can bring people of all backgrounds together.
“Our goal is to not only bolster the Hindu community but really all communities and teach others what Hinduism is and about the different holidays of Hinduism,” Somanchi said.
The association has already tried to help out SHS by fundraising at the Solon Home days.
“Over the summer we raised over $3,000 for our local temple by selling Indian snacks and doing henna on different people,” Somanchi said.
Somanchi said she believes that this club can help you learn a lot about other people’s cultures as well, not only Hinduism.
Book Club
Lastly, SHS also has a Book Club. In Book Club students can read a group chosen book and then discuss it.
Senior Co- president Cori Arnopolin talks about the book selection process.
“When we select a book we make sure everyone has a choice in the book,” Arnopolin said. “We don’t like to choose a random book because we did that last year and nobody read any of the books.”
Book club at SHS has a system for meetings.
“We meet every two weeks, during the two weeks students should be done with the book or halfway done with the book,” Arnopolin said. “Then we’ll talk about the halfway point of the book, discuss it and then start thinking about the next book and get ideas in. Ashlyn [co-president] always makes cookies.”
Arnopolin wants to make sure this is a group and student led club.
“We make sure everyone’s opinions are shared and welcomed,” Arnopolin said. “I always post Google forms to make sure everyone is included. I ask what types of books they want to read, what’s your favorite genre, what’s your availability to make sure everything works out.”
Recently the book club read “The Outsiders” and they are thinking about their next book.
If none of the clubs listed above interest you there are a plethora of clubs to join and even then if none of them interest you with the help of an advisor you can start new clubs too.
