Manitou Springs High School clubs and classes hosted fundraisers and volunteer events for Valentine’s Day. Groups like Spanish Club, Key Club, Yearbook and Environmental Club all planned Valentine’s Day themed events that were taking place throughout the holiday week.
Ingrid Perez, a Spanish teacher and advisor for both Spanish Club and Student Council, has helped both of these groups plan new events for Valentine’s Day. “We usually do something for Valentine’s Day every year, and for a couple of years we did a photo booth; but we decided to go another route this year and do a bake sale with a Valentine’s note in Español instead for Spanish Club,” Perez said. “The profits of this event are gonna go towards the sponsorship of Maurice, which is the kid from El Salvador that Spanish Club has been sponsoring since March of 2022.”
In order to save money, Spanish Club made a plan so the overall club was not spending money buying already made baked goods. The bake sale took place during Advisory on Feb. 11 in the hallway where Coffee Corral would usually take place so they would not have to take orders online. “Students are the ones making the baked goods, and they are each going to donate them to the event,” Perez said.
Gabrielle Waters, the media center tech, librarian and advisor of Environmental Club at MSHS, put together a fundraiser that they have held for the last five years but added a new addition to it this year. “We are doing little packages of chocolate, succulents, stickers, cookies and gnomes for a new addition. You can buy one at a time or in three different packages,” Waters said.
The Environmental Club has around ten to fifteen students that all have different roles to fulfill for this fundraiser every Tuesday at lunch leading up to the Valentine’s Day week. “Some of the kids are making the cookies that are going to go in the package and then some have been hand making the gnomes. Then we’re gonna put the little boxes together and deliver them before Valentine’s Day,” Waters said. “Happy Cats Haven, the zoo or Flying Pig Farm were three places that were thinking of putting some of the profits to and then we would keep a percent of them for the club as well.”
Tiffany Selz, a math teacher and the new advisor for Key Club at MSHS this year after Mike Talbott stepped down, is continuing the tradition of putting together a luncheon for senior citizens in the community on Feb. 12 in the Media Center. “The students will go meet up with them and bring them over on a bus,” Selz said. “They will set up the luncheon for themselves and then take them back to the community center on a bus.”
Selz shares how this event has always been done as a non-profitable volunteer event. “This will just be volunteer work to show appreciation and support for the Kiwanis members that help support Key Club as well,” Selz said.
Macie Aldridge, a junior who is a member of the Spanish Club, Key Club, Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Student Council, volunteered to help set up and host the Valentine’s Day Luncheon for Key Club. “We will do bingo and eat lunch with dessert with them and then clean up and take them back,” Aldridge said.
Riley Walker, an English teacher and advisor for Yearbook, is having the yearbook’s fundraising committee put together a bake sale during the senior night basketball game. “They will be selling strawberry and chocolate cake pops, cookies, chocolate strawberries, brownies and pink lemonade,” Walker said.
Walker expresses that this is the first time the yearbook has done any kind of fundraising for the class before. “We are trying to do a fundraising event every month to be able to buy a new camera,” Walker said.
Annya Vasquez, a student on the yearbook’s fundraiser committee, is with six other students in the committee trying to plan more fundraising events after seeing how the one for Valentine’s Day will go. “We are planning on having a Google Doc sent out so you can order things online and have them delivered to you if you can not make it to senior night,” Vasquez said.
