Author Spotlight
Libby Marsh
Sixteen freshmen doubles teams played in the Freshman Connection — SHARE’s freshman-only volunteer group — pickleball tournament on Oct. 20 from 11 a.m.-2 p.m..
To participate, players had to bring at least one package of socks to be donated to the Church of the Resurrection Homeless project. Hundreds of packages of socks were collected.
Freshman Connection Executives Ainsley Agniel, Will Ballard, Anne Bowser, Brooks Dillon, Braxton Jeffery and Audrey Squires set up the bracket and ran the event.
“All the freshmen connection, execs, all of us got out there early and it was just fun to work [the event],” Agniel said.
A $10 Chick-fil-A gift card was awarded to each person on the winning team and the team with the best costumes chosen by the freshman executives. Freshmen Christopher Long and Brody Feldman won the championship, and freshmen Burt Sheets and Zack Russell won best costume for their “Stepbrothers” movie duo costume.
“Some of our [favorite costumes] were step brothers from [the movie ‘Stepbrothers’],” Bowser said. “There was one, it was ‘Napoleon Dynamite’, that was funny and then there was one that was Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.”
During the matches, Halloween-themed songs like “The Monster Mash” and “The Goo Goo Muck” played.
“Everybody was so excited to play pickleball, and I think everybody was happy to be there,” Bowser said.
SHARE is hosting a gingerbread house building volunteer opportunity at the Kansas City United Church of Christ on Nov. 4 from noon-3 p.m..
Students will assemble the structure of the houses using icing to glue graham crackers to a milk carton. Last year, sophomore Adeline Clifford participated in the event.
“They have a whole setup with a bunch of icing and graham crackers and then you just take a milk carton and then use it to glue the graham crackers on it and build up these little houses,” Clifford said. “You didn’t decorate them or anything, but you just put them together and then later, like, in like a month later, the kids like decorated them.”
Freshman Connection Executives and Operation Breakthrough Executives are collaborating to plan the event. Volunteers aren’t required to stay the entire time, but the organizers hope to build 700-800 houses to later decorate for an Operation Breakthrough event.
SHARE executive and senior Millie Norden remembers the event from her freshman year and has seen the work the freshmen have put into planning it.
“[The gingerbread houses] would be a great way to get freshmen together again around the holidays and just a great opportunity for everybody to hang out, which is super awesome,” Norden said.
On Dec. 1 and 2 volunteers will return to the church to help kids from the community decorate the gingerbread houses, keeping bowls of candy full and help cut icing bags open.
During the event the program will collect donations from attendees, according to SHARE coordinator Sheryl Kaplan who has helped organize the event for years. She attended the event when her daughter was a freshman.
“Operation Breakthrough has this project, where parents can [donate] however much money they pay for their kids to decorate a gingerbread house,” Kaplan said. “And that’s how they raise money for their program.”
Sign-ups are open for SHARE’s annual dodgeball tournament on Nov. 8 at 5:30 p.m. in the main gym. Each team must have eight players and submissions are due through Google Form by the end of school on Nov. 6.
SHARE Coordinators Erin Billingsly and Sheryl Kaplan and Senior SHARE Executives are hoping for around 20 teams of eight, and the entry fee is one box of cereal per person. To earn an extra “life,” participants can bring an extra box of cereal.
Donations will go to the Johnson County Christmas Bureau for their holiday shop, according to Billingsley.
“It’s almost like this big department store that’s free for the guests so that people will go in,” Billingsley said. “They can shop for clothes and they can shop for toys for the kids and then they have a whole grocery store.”
The tournament has become heated in past years, according to Kaplan — the 150 participants, energetic music and competition to win the grand prize of a gift card to the Village shops, only add to the madness.
“It’s so fast-paced and there’s so many people there the teams that get out usually stay to watch the other teams,” Kaplan said. “There’s a lot happening, so to me, it’s just fun watching the spirit.”
Both the bracket winners and the “best dressed” team earn a prize. SHARE Executives including senior Maddie Doyle will create the bracket and referee games.
“It’s just our way of giving back to the community but also making it fun,” Doyle said.
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