The positive energy is inescapable! Yes, it is spirit week. From the fun activities to the dress-up days the Student Council planned for the student body this year, CHS junior and spirit week chair Jenna Ouelette can’t imagine a better way to start the ‘22/’23 school year. The student council began preparing for this week during the summer making sure that the student body has an adventure of a lifetime.

“I’ve taken on the role of spirit chair this year, so I’m more involved,” Ouelette said. “This year, I’ve been able to talk with my peers about planning spirit week and things like the activities.”

Ouelette has undertaken a major role in helping the student body enjoy a fun and safe spirit week. The games and activities planned are designed to make memories and help everyone feel involved and accepted. 

“We plan so everybody has an opportunity to get involved,” Ouelette said.

The games set up during lunches and the pep rally are specifically there for the student body to participate and enjoy spirit week. This year the theme connects all four grades and will be an adventure to remember: A Trip Around the World.

“Freshman have Paris, sophomores are Rome, juniors are New York, and the seniors are Las Vegas,” Ouelette said.

A trip around the world connects people in new and exciting ways and that is what the student council wanted to bring to spirit week.  Involvement from all the grades makes spirit week run smoothly not just for those who planned it but for the students as well.

“I tried to pick themes that everybody would be able to participate in so something that was super simple, something that everyone had easily available in their closet, so that we can all feel unified as a group,” Ouelette said.

The student body always manages to come together as a whole and have a great time due to the planning of the student council. The theme corresponds to the dress-up days starting with Monday – Day in the Airport (PJS), Tuesday – Off to College (jersey day), Wednesday – City Nickname (Grade color), Thursday – Made in the USA (red/white.blue), and Friday – Welcome Home (blue/gold). 

“My goal was to relate each theme back to our greater theme,” Ouelette said. “So kind of giving each day a sub theme.”

The student council enjoys all the hard work and collaboration they have to do to make spirit week an amazing experience for everyone. Ouelette and others come up with a lot of creative ideas and use their months of meetings to plan and create an amazing finished product for the student body.

“We started preparing for our homecoming actually over the summer,” Ouelette said. “We just kinda started to brainstorm ideas for homecoming.”

The student council puts a lot of effort and thought into how spirit week will turn out and especially how the students will react. 

“I got to spend my time after school being really creative and artistic and thinking that through like picking a background and putting all the information on the board so that it was accessible to everyone,” Ouelette said. “We were really happy with the outcome and it was just like a core group of people from the junior class council that did that with me.”

Often the student body does not realize that spirit week is a project that many people poured a lot of themselves into. It is a very long process and takes a lot of work. 

“Everything that people see is surface level; they just show up to the dance or the show up to the parade but sometimes they don’t see the deeper level of work that went into planning it,” Ouelette said. “I really hope that people appreciate everything that the student council does, because these events wouldn’t be possible without the student-led planning and organizations.”

The student council tries to look out for the student body and make sure that all the year’s events will bring a smile to students, teachers, and staff alike, putting months of planning and creativity into making memories for every class.

“When you think of high school you think of those coming of age teen movies and things like that,” Ouelette said. “That’s what homecoming really feels like. And I feel like we were kinda lacking this last year, so we’re hoping that this week is a memorable one for a lot of people.”