By Richard Li, Staff Reporter
With the holiday season rapidly approaching, Peer Mediation hosted a week-long Fall Festival from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2 to celebrate Halloween and the start of November.
History teacher Emily McGready and Peer Mediator Amy Wolgin headed the organization of the Festival. Their primary goal was simply to brighten up Conestoga’s atmosphere.
“The whole goal of the Fall Festival was to spread school unity and just to make people happy,” Wolgin said.
This year marked the return of the Fall Festival after many years without the event.
“It was an event that used to go on during the week of Club Fair, but it eventually got phased out. This year, we wanted to bring it back because it’s in a lull period for Peer Mediation between the Club Fair and Cornucopia,” Wolgin said.
The Peer Mediation team planned many different activities throughout the school to celebrate the festivities.
“What we did this year was really all just the ideas of the P.A.L’s and Peer Mediation. We all met together and brainstormed things we wanted to do that we thought the school would like, so the ideas were quite original,” McGready said.
The team hosted the “Leaf me a Compliment” event in the main lobby, where students could write compliments on leaves for their classmates to be posted on a compliment tree. Other fall-themed decorations could also be found in the main lobby and throughout the school.
“The team purchased bags of fall decorations and we were given the opportunity to be creative and set up the hallway in a fun, yet organized way,” Peer Mediator Kyla Weil said.
Fall decor: Kind words adorn the leaves of the compliment tree for the “Leaf me a Compliment” event. This was one of several activities, including a photo booth.
On Halloween, Peer Mediators set up a photo booth for students to take polaroid pictures and hosted the popular costume contest. They also held a candy drive, giving students an opportunity to donate leftover Halloween candy to overseas troops. Finally, the team hid golden leaves throughout the school. Students who found leaves throughout the week could turn them in for free popcorn.
Junior Mihir Dhamankar found one of these golden leaves in the main lobby.
“I found it behind the pioneer statue in the main lobby while waiting for my mom to pick me up. I thought it was an interesting piece of paper, so I picked it up and was interested about the mention of free popcorn,” Dhamankar said.
Lucky winner: Junior Mihir Dhamankar poses with the golden leaf he found in the main lobby. These leaves were hidden throughout the school and could be exchanged for free popcorn.
The team felt very satisfied with the outcome of the Fall Festival, and hopes to host it again next year.
“Overall, the Festival had a very good reception. There were definitely some ideas for things we could do differently next year, but it was certainly something people enjoyed enough to continue in the future,” McGready said.
Check out the photo gallery below!
Richard Li can be reached at [email protected]
