Student Government (STUGO) has long been a part of the school and the community as a whole. With annual donation drives and events they hold, they give back to the community in a number of different ways, some without the benefit of service hours. 

“Student Government’s whole goal is to get community involvement. So everything we plan is to bring us closer together as a community and as a school,” said junior Ella Hanks.

“Our main goal is to fulfill the needs of the students, whether that may be the dances or any of the events and assemblies. It is about creating memories we can take back from high school,” said senior Samuel Cristina, who is also the community service and fundraising liaison for the Student Government. STUGO has hosted and planned many drives and events in the past, with some of the most renowned being the annual Emery Bear drive, annual food drives, and dances. The Emery Bear drive is one of the most known drives.

However, due to the fact that service hours are not given for these activities, most members must resort to outside activities or clubs to get the hours that they need. “It is kind of complicated because all of the events that we plan, we don’t get service hours for them. So we help with other things outside of school, like Thanksgiving food drives and other things like that we can help with the community. But the Student Government doesn’t give us exact service hours,” said Hanks.

However, for cases such as the Thanksgiving food drive, they do get service hours for and do actually volunteer for. “We do get service hours that we put in at the end of the year… We do a lot of community service whether that be Halloween decorating, or decorating for Homecoming, and different events like that. We are always doing some sort of community service,” said Cristerna. 

Many students within the Student Government do extra volunteering or are in other extracurricular clubs in order to get those volunteer hours while still being a part of STUGO and helping the community and around campus.

“I personally am a youth ambassador for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. So I do a lot of volunteer work with the diabetic community as well as with the Student Government,” said Hanks. Within the organization, she helps out the diabetic community as a mentor and leader to the youth, and within the student government, she helps to plan and participate in all of the events and activities they hold.

Cristerna is also a co-founder of the Pumas for Pumas clubs, and within that is a lot of volunteering for mental health resources. “I also tutor and help my elementary school drama club,” said Cristerna.  

Currently, the Student Government is focusing more on the holiday aspect of volunteering and planning with the holiday season just starting up. But, in the next couple of months “we will be focusing more on MORP and doing a lot more stuff regarding Prom and all of those things again,” said Cristerna.

Amongst the many events planned for the future, the annual Smiles for the Season is nearing. This is a fundraiser where they bring children from lower-income schools and families and give them a Christmas experience that they may not have been able to experience before.