Author Spotlight
Maggie Condon
Junior Lulu Stadler took a pause from debating her Homecoming after-party outfit with her friends-turned-club-members to slather ketchup on her Chick-Fil-A hashbrowns at 7:50 a.m.
Since forming the Breakfast Club in August, Stadler’s new favorite Thursday morning activity is dining at a local restaurant before school for the sole purpose being to connect with other students.
Two months earlier in the middle of the August heat, Stadler was brainstorming ways to get more involved in the school as well as widen her community of friends around the halls of school.
She’d seen a group of seniors start and grow Pickleball Club into an activity that brings the senior class together. Stadler wanted to make something special for the class of 2025, so she teamed up with juniors Sophia Beedle and Camilla Simmons to make the ultimate Class of 2025 club.
“We feel like every grade should have a club that everyone can go to in their grade,” Beedle said.
There were a slurry of texts back and forth, brainstorming and coming up with an idea, but they settled on the one — breakfast club. Once they had the idea they wasted no time turning their dream into a reality. They decided that late start Thursdays could be filled with socializing instead of an extra hour of sleep.
However, before they could fill out the club application, they needed a teacher sponsor. Chemistry teacher Susan Hallstrom seemed like the obvious choice — being Simmons’ former chemistry teacher and a tennis coach for all three girls. However, Hallstrom originally declined because of her tight schedule.
“They begged and groveled, ‘Please, please, please,’” Hallstrom said while laughing. “They used the whole, ‘We love you, we want you to do this,’ and I caved and agreed to do it.”
The club was approved by administration in one day after filling out various Google forms. After the approval, they ran to Hallstrom’s room and grabbed her chemistry-themed coffee mugs to take silly pictures announcing that they’d been approved to post on social media as promotion.
They created an Instagram account @breakfastclubsme and a GroupMe on Aug. 24. They designed online flyers to hang around school and asked students in all of their classes to join.
By September, they had over 100 followers on the Instagram account and immediately started promoting their first meeting on Sept. 14: a “breakfast bash” at Rise Biscuits in the Village Shops.
In preparation for the first meeting, they emailed Rise to explain that they had a club meeting there and to see if they could score any sort of discount. Rise was willing to give them them 10% off the meal for anyone that was there for the Breakfast Club when purchasing their biscuits.
The first meeting consisted of under 10 juniors walking through the doors of Rise, ready to catch up and share a breakfast with fellow members of their class.
Two weeks later, the club met at Chick-Fil-A for their second meeting where they expanded to over 10 members.
At that point, Simmons, Beedle and Stadler decided to schedule regular meetings on the first late start of each month. When the first Thursday of October rolled around, they posted their usual Instagram story poll where people could vote where they wanted to eat. For this meeting it was between Nektar and Einstein Bros. — members voted bagels for the win.
The girls walked into the bagel shop to find an excited group of 15 juniors waiting to mingle. They snagged the center tables big enough for the group to all be close discussing Homecoming, Taylor Swift at the Chiefs game and AP Biology homework. Junior and Breakfast Club member Poppy Root’s favorite moment was the lighthearted catchup with some friends she doesn’t always get the chance to talk to.
“I get to go socialize with my friends and also eat really good food,” Root said. “And that’s something I look forward to every Thursday late start.”
As for the future of the club, there will be more opportunities for juniors around East to spend the first Thursday morning of the month with each other. The population of the club continues to grow with their Instagram getting comments from both @risebiscuits commenting heart emojis and @einsteinbros saying “Glad everyone enjoyed their breakfast at Einstein Bros!”
“I hope it builds a stronger East community because going into that was the goal,” Stadler said. “To bond our grade and hang out with people outside of our usual bubble of friends.”
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