Community Council organized the second Community Service Week of the school year, with community service opportunities and school bonding events, from March 18-22. Activities included an Animal Rights Club fundraiser that brought puppies to the quad, meal packing for Rise Against Hunger, Teachers vs. Students Jeopardy, sandwich-making for Midnight Mission and a Field Day organized by Prefect Council.
Field Day started with the girls’ and boys’ basketball teams cutting down nets in Taper Gymnasium to commentate each team’s California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) championships in Division II and Open Division, respectively. Students could buy pizza, burgers and hot dogs on the field. Students raced in an inflatable obstacle course, played spikeball and lounged on picnic blankets on the field.
Community Council member Eric Lee ’25 said Community Council hoped to bring the student body together while supporting charity.
“Our overall goal was to encourage everyone to get more involved in the Harvard-Westlake community while serving other communities,” Lee said. “We’re trying to foster a sense of togetherness and unity [and] the idea that people can come together and work for the betterment of others, especially through a medium like community service.”
Lee said the Community Council decided on which groups to partner with Rise Against Hunger based on the school’s previous relationship with the organization.
“We’ve had long partnerships with a lot of the organizations, such as the group that we’re delivering the sandwiches to,” Lee said. “We have done sandwich-making events for them in the past. So Harvard-Westlake has, in the past, worked with these organizations and found the experience good enough to come back and work with them again.”
Jacob Massey ’25, who participated in Students vs. Teachers Jeopardy, said despite some challenges in Jeopardy’s organization, the game was a positive experience overall.
“I thought that Jeopardy was fun, but also poorly set up,” Massey said. “[The hosts] had no idea who buzzed first, and neither did [the participants]. They could have just found a Jeopardy website that could automatically track who buzzed first.”
Dylan Wuo ’25 said Field Day allowed him to bond with peers in a way he had not done in a while.
“I am happy that [my friends and I] were able to have a mini football game as it was a good way for classmates to bond outside of class,” Wuo said. “I haven’t been able to play [football] in a while, so Field Day made it easier to organize a game.”
