Student Council hosted South’s annual Spring Fling on May 8 in the autos courtyard with the goal of raising money for victims of the Nepal earthquake.
In previous years, the event’s goal was to de-stress students during AP testing and raise money for clubs, according to Justine Kim, Senior Class president, but this year was different.
“[The profit] that we gathered from the games that we’ve rented, all those proceeds are going to go to Doctors Without Borders, [an organization allowing doctors to respond to international medical emergencies] and are specifically focused on getting aid to the Nepalese victims,” Kim said.
According to Kim, advertising South’s clubs is another goal. Clubs approach Student Council to ask for a booth at the event to sell food to raise money.
“Hellenic Club sells gyros, Key Club gets Dairy Queen Blizzards, Girl’s Letter Club [made] smoothies this year and Student Council also typically sells something,” Kim said.
According to Marley Hambourger, Student Body secretary, part of what makes Spring Fling different than other Student Council events is that anyone who wants to can be involved.
“It’s kind of different from homecoming and the canned food drive,” Hambourger said. “For those, everyone [has] a very clear outline of the tasks that need to be completed. For Spring Fling, it’s anyone who wants to step up and help.”
Hambourger says that, in addition to having as many people help as possible, advertising for the event is an important part of its success.
“The past few years we used social media a lot to promote it as well as announcements,” Hambourger said. “We also have members of Student Council go around the cafeterias the day of to make sure everyone knows what’s going on.”
Dr. James Shellard, Student Activities director, knew how to apply student requests so that there was something for everyone at the event, according to Abby Grant, Freshman Class president. He called companies to rent the dunk tank, blow-up slide, and other activities that were used to entertain Spring Fling attendees.
“Dr. Shellard is the man behind the scenes,” Grant said. “Without him, Spring Fling wouldn’t be possible. Of course the Student Council members engaged in lots of the planning and idea processing, but Dr. Shellard is very creative with entertainment.”
According to Kim, Shellard allowed Student Council members a generous level of freedom during the planning process and allowed them to have creative freedom.
“He guided us and gave us the framework we needed, but allowed for the ideas to be our own,” Kim said.
According to Grant, the main purposes of this event were not only to service those in Nepal and give back to students, but also to provide them the opportunity to enjoy school outside of the classroom.
“I’d say a big goal of this event is [that] five or so years later, when the current GBS students have all become GBS Alumni, they’ll remember events like Spring Fling, Gym Jam or best of all Homecoming Week,” Grant said. “They’ll remember these school-spirited events and how it strengthened their love for the school. I’d love to see that.”
