On Sunday, Jan. 14, OHS celebrated its first “OHS Fest”: a new school event aimed at promoting a fun mental health break for students. The mix of the winter season and daylight savings, the end of winter break, upcoming finals and the overall bleakness of January had students craving a break. It was thanks to the hard work of Thriving Minds, SHOC and YOLO that OHS Fest could become a reality.
January is a usually mellow month, with very few student activities and events that give students a break from their stressful responsibilities. Because of the low morale of students, Thriving Minds came up with the idea of OHS Fest. Senior Madelyn Fisher said, “We knew from experience just how challenging this time of year can be to people’s mental health, so we planned this event to not only bring awareness to it but to encourage students to take a break from the stress in their lives.” Many students and volunteers took part in making OHS Fest a reality, members from Thriving Minds, SHOC and YOLO had many students participate in setting up, running games, reffing the Nuke ‘Em tournament, running the snack booth and tearing down.
Most big events at OHS have a set tournament to bring students participation in. For example, Homecoming has a volleyball tournament, Cash Drive has a Basketball Extravaganza and a pickleball tournament, Snow Week has Powder Buff and Mental Health Week has Powder Puff. Because of how much participation and excitement is brought in by these sorts of events, it was decided that Nuke ‘Em would become the tournament added to this new tradition. This addition had a successful outcome as over 200 students came to watch and participate in the event.
The cost of attendance was $2 while playing in the Nuke ‘Em tournament was $5. Even though Nuke ‘Em was the main event of the night, students had the opportunity to participate in the “carnival” upstairs by the weight room. Activities to choose from included bean bags, cup pong, Jenga, Connect Four and ladder toss. Meanwhile, snacks were available for purchase by the entrance down by the Foundation Room.
While the goal of OHS Fest was to bring awareness to mental health and provide an uplifting environment to students, it was also used as an opportunity to help raise money for the mental health organizations of OHS to help further advocate for students. By the end of the night over $353 was raised. SHOC advisor Ms. Nancy Williams said, “I thought that the night was super successful. I’m very hopeful that this will become an annual event.”
Due to the generous participation of OHS students and volunteers, there is almost no doubt that OHS Fest is here to stay, becoming one of the first new traditions at the new high school.
