Every year, the SHS student council picks a charity to support and invest in throughout the year. This year, that charity is Planned Parenthood, an organization dedicated to providing health care and protecting reproductive rights. In addition to providing direct services, Planned Parenthood also works to make health care more equitable.

“What they do is they provide health care, they provide sex education, they have outreach programs for low-income communities, giving people the health care that they need,” said Rose Schnorr, sophomore class co-president. “We are going to be donating to the health care services portion of the foundation.”

Although the student council eventually agreed on Planned Parenthood, they initially had many other options. To decide which charity would be chosen, council members discussed the options and voted on the top two.

“We do a little research on our own, then come back with a charity that [we] want to propose to the group, tell the group a little bit about it and then we just do a blind vote,” said Jacey Gray-Hall, senior class president.

This year, the top two charity options were Planned Parenthood and the Jrue and Lauren Holiday Social Impact Fund. After Planned Parenthood received the most votes, there was still a question of which charity would be the official choice. According to Schnorr, this was due to a miscommunication surrounding which charity was chosen.

“We talked to [Mr. Kenney], and apparently, he was not aware that we voted as a council for Planned Parenthood,” Schnorr said. “So we cleared that up, we had a meeting and now Planned Parenthood is our charity.”

After confirming their charity of choice, the council began focusing on ways to fundraise for Planned Parenthood. So far, the only event held has been a bake sale, but there are many more to come.

“We’ve got the annual ‘Sleep Under’ coming up, and that’s for elementary students — they are all really excited about that because that’s going to be fun,” Schnorr said. “We are also having bake sales, and we usually do some other fundraising things throughout the year, so just keep an eye out.”

The student council plans to introduce fundraising events in the near future.

“We have some newer ideas this year too,” Gray-Hall said. “We’re supposed to be having a pop-up thrift shop, and we’re looking to do some other unique events that we haven’t done in the past.”

While the student council fundraises for a charity every year, the pandemic has made it more difficult due to the lack of in-person events. With the return of such events, the council hopes to raise more money for their charity and engage more in the school community.

“I’m really excited to get back to in-person events this year,” Schnorr said. “It really just makes you feel like so much more of a community, which I think is what student council is really about. It’s about school spirit, it’s about community, and of course, it’s about raising money for charities that we feel are important to us and that represent our student body.”

Besides the newly chosen charity, there are other changes happening within the student council. Specifically, the council will be changing advisors from Jason Lowery, Spanish teacher, to Renee Glembin, English teacher. 

“I am stepping aside as Student Council advisor at the end of the semester and Mrs. Glembin will be taking over,” Lowery said in an email to Ripples. “It has been a joy to serve in this role and it is definitely a bittersweet decision for me. I know that this amazing group of students will continue to represent the student body of SHS and will have an amazing advisor in Mrs. Glembin.”

Despite the changes happening within the student council, members hope to put on successful fundraisers for Planned Parenthood that include both the student body and the community.

“We’re really trying to do more things where [we can be] a community and we can really get all the students together in something that they are excited about,” Schnorr said.