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Aarushi Bahadur

TYING IT ALL TOGETHER. Senior Bridget Keel, juniors Taylor Barkwell and Thomas Kovarik and sophomore Elliot Sjaastad complete a blanket.

Organized by CAS (Community Action and Service Club), SPA’s first Service Night took place on April 3. Held on the Randolph Campus, the open-house event invited students, faculty and their families to spend one or two hours working at various stations alongside one another.

Spread throughout Redleaf Commons, the stations included putting together care packages for Meals on Wheels, packing period kits for Period Kits MN, making tie blankets to be donated to My Very Own Bed, and writing and decorating letters for Operation Gratitude to go to active service members. Additionally, the profits of a bake sale are being sent to Friends of the Mississippi, and a book and clothing drive gathered new and used items for the Minnesota Children’s Hospital and Sharing and Caring Hands respectively. Families were also able to donate items for stations prior to the event.

When organizing the event, club treasurer Kate Hanf hoped the project would bring the SPA community together. “I think service just makes people feel good. And it’s important to highlight that as a school. First, we just wanted to get the high school, but then we were like, why not open it up to the middle school and the lower school and have a moment…to bring the entire school together doing something wonderful?”

When looking for organizations to partner with, CAS searched for activities that could be engaging for students of all ages to accomplish the goal of bringing SPA together. “We were just thinking of things you could actually do at a service site, that you can physically do — something like packing period kids, or making tie blankets or writing out letters,” Hanf said.

The plans took off from there, with the Service Night generating 125 RSVPs from different families and even more attending.

For club member Liam Sullivan who was running a table where students could decorate bags for the Meals on Wheels care packages, the motivation to create the event was simple. “We wanted to do…a community service event. Last year, we had done the car wash. And so we were looking at different charities…and we came across these few ideas…and this is what resulted.”

Hanf agreed with the sentiment. “I think in years past we just haven’t really done something big and we wanted to do something big, and I think a lot of us were thinking back to elementary school when we used to have festivals or carnivals after school. And we’re like, why not try to replicate that?”

The effort paid off. “The turnout here was very high — it was pretty great. A lot of people came out to support and donate. It was super busy pretty much the whole time,” club member Sam Peterson said, who was running the decorating table with Sullivan.

Additionally, Hanf hopes that the Service Night served as an introduction to volunteering to those new to it, especially in the wake of the removal of the tenth-grade service requirement. “I feel like so many people want to do service but they don’t know exactly where to start. And I think this was a good opportunity to get seeds planted for people, like ideas of places to donate to or different ways to get involved.”

Peterson, Sullivan and Hanf are not sure what the CAS events will involve next year, but they hope to host another event of a similar scale, if not make the Service Night annual.