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Winter week was a hit! Now, you might ask “What is winter week?” Well, winter week is a huge spirit week. The week before homecoming, Washington High School had its very own spirit week. All of the grade classes competed against each other to see who had the best spirit. Winter week is very similar to homecoming spirit week but this time, all of the high schools in the Fremont Unified School District and Newark Memorial High School compete to see which school has the best spirit!
Schools can win points by having students dress up. Opposing schools can take points away from our school by collecting dollar bills. However, we can gain points again by collecting coins. In the student center at WHS there were jars with each school’s name on it and putting bills or coins inside of the jars would take points away from that school or give points to WHS. For example, if someone were to put a $100 bill into the JFKHS jar, that would take 10,000 points away from John F. Kennedy High School. Another example could be putting a quarter into the WHS jar, which would give our school 25 points. The money that was raised went to three local organizations.
The first organization is the Animal Assisted Happiness organization (AAH) located in the heart of Silicon Valley. AAH is a non-profit organization providing services to youth with needs through barnyard animal interactions. The organization provides “Barnyard Buddies” which are your typical farm animals, such as mini-horses, goats, pigs, and chickens, allowing the youth to connect with them for up to an hour virtually or in real life. The special thing about these animals is that children can visit and develop a healthy relationship with them, allowing them to get comfortable with animals in general.
Viola Blythe Community Services is the second organization. The Viola Blythe Community Service Center of Newark is a non-profit, nonsectarian corporation that supports people who are in need of social and human services. VBCS supplies people in need with emergency food, clothes, and basic necessities. The organization is based off of a woman named Viola Blythe who helped the people of Fremont, Union City and Newark for over 50 years. She served as an example to people that “Service to Humanity is the Best Work of Life”.
The last organization that the raised money helped fund is the Tri-City Food Bank. This is a typical food bank, supplying people with food, clothes and basic necessities, similar to Viola Blythe Community Services. They are the largest client-direct food bank in the area and they serve up to 16,000 people every month. The TCFB supplies low-income residents of Alameda County with six million pounds of food a year. The organization gets its food from local farmers, restaurants, grocery stores, and canned food donations.
The six schools that participated in winter week raised a grand total of $18,117.91! JFKHS had the highest amount of bills raised with $1791. However, our school did not do so well. We raised $398 in bills which was the lowest amount of money raised throughout the schools. We will do better next year for sure. On the bright side we did do better in the amount of coins raised. We raised 2329 coins, with an unknown total amount. We came in second place to MSJHS in coin raised, where they had raised 4660 coins.
Overall, we had an overall dress up rate of 73% and ended up in second place with 10,736 points! ASB president Pavi Dhillon says, “Winter week will most likely become a bigger spirit week with years to come,” which gives most people from WHS more chances to win! All of the organizations that we helped are so thankful for the money we raised during this cold, holiday season. We thank everyone who participated!
Rylee Milnes is a freshman at Washington High School. She grew up in Fremont, California and this is her first year at the Hatchet. Rylee is very social and likes to interview people. Rylee's hobbies include, skating, surfing, snowboarding and any other outdoor activity. Rylee is the head captain of Washington’s JV cheerleading team, while healing from knee surgery. This recovery prevents her from playing sports that she enjoys such as basketball, soccer, volleyball, and softball, but is determined to get back at it. Rylee plans on getting a degree in kinesiology to become a physical therapist.