Everyone’s favorite time of the year is the spring pep rally! Student Leadership puts on an annual and eventful spirit week called Charity Week. At the end of the week, right before students are ready to go on spring break, there is an exciting pep rally. Each day of the week, there is a spirit day leading up to the pep rally with different unique themes that students can dress up as to gain spirit points for their grades.
While this occurs, there are also various fundraisers, like “Penny Wars” and “Ticket to Skip It”. In “Ticket to Skip It,” students can pay to skip a certain class and attend an event run by the student leadership instead. The money raised went to the foundation Focus Hope, a non-profit organization that raises money to overcome racism and poverty by providing education and training for underrepresented minorities and others. The pep rally consists of fun games, events, and performances, which all come down to the four different grades competing for the title of most spirited class.
The engaging pep rally started with Berkley’s very own band playing the national anthem. Then, the varsity spring sports including Unified bocce ball, boys baseball, girls soccer, track and field, girls’ softball, boys’ golf, girls’ tennis, boys’ rugby, girls’ lacrosse, boys’ lacrosse, and esports ran around the gym with different posters or signs to represent which team they were. This is Berkley’s take on the Olympic opening ceremony, but the hard-working teams are honored instead of countries. Before the fun and thrilling games began, Berkley’s dance team performed for everyone.
Seniors Lucy Cohen and Avery Weingarden were in charge of the microphone, bringing enthusiasm into the gym. Each grade dressed in their class colors, either white, green, red, or blue, sitting in their section, waving their class’s flag to get things started and supporting their peers in competitive games. The first game that started the cheering was the “Simon Says Cup Game”. In this game, at first, two students from the same grade had to do what was said with a solo cup in between them while touching their head, knees, and shoulders. When the MC said “cup!” the participants had to get the cup first and knock the other person out of the game. As the game continued, it eliminated more students until there were a final two, and then, after having to do things like a cartwheel and spin around, the juniors took the cup, securing the victory!
Throughout the whole day, students received one beaded necklace in the first hour and played rock, paper, scissors against each other to collect the most necklaces by the end of the day. This intense game is called “Rochambeau”. The MCs had everyone who had a large number of necklaces come down from the stands. It was the final four, with many necklaces to lose. The finalists played rock, paper, scissors against each other, and junior Emmy Warner won all the necklaces. After that, different grades created groups for the “Mattress Relay Race”. Participants had to get a blow-up mattress across the gym floor to their other members of the team, by running and jumping on it quickly. The juniors happened to win again, but then lost once they went against the teachers.
Lastly, to wrap up the competitions, a tradition of “Tug of War” against the different grades was played. First up was the underclassmen against each other, where the sophomores took the win. The upperclassmen went against each other, and the juniors won. For the finale, the juniors went against the sophomores, and the sophomores won after using all the strength they had!
As the fun and games ended, it was almost time to end school and officially begin spring break, but there were still a few things to wrap up. The robotics team announced very exciting news that they will be attending states for the first time since 2015. Then Ms. Flood, the teacher behind student leadership, announced the placings of the grades. Freshmen were last, then juniors second to last, seniors took second place, and sophomores won it all. Sophomores cheered so loudly as they would be awarded an ice cream social for collecting the most spirit points. We are so grateful our school can do amazing, well-organized events like this. We have Student Leadership to thank for doing something so fun and impactful for our school.
