Bringing Students’ Passions to Life at RHS

Riverbend High School has more clubs than can be counted, ranging from academic clubs to community service clubs and clubs that are just for fun, such as the Card Game Club! Because of the wide variety of clubs, there is a club available to fit nearly every student's interest. 

But, if there is a case where a student desires a club that doesn't exist, they can turn their passion into a reality by creating a new club at Riverbend. 

There is a process to go about this, where the student who desires to found the club must create an outline for the club and submit it to the principal for approval. This includes creating bylaws, officer positions, goals, and club functions. The founder must also find a teacher or administrator at the school willing to be the sponsor and advisor, supervising the students during meetings.

Once the club is approved, recruitment begins!

The club often stems from a friend group sharing a passion for a topic and wanting to turn it into a club. Over time, though, the club quickly expands as the word travels around the school by mouth and over the "RHS News," the daily morning announcements. 

This happened with the Card Game Club when founder, and current senior, Ella Stonebreaker was inspired to create the club because she and her friends loved to play card games together. Stonebreaker decided to take her passion and make it a reality so that students could have fun playing games together during their "free period," called Bear Block.

Explaining what inspired her to create the club, Ella said, "I enjoyed playing card games, and I felt like they could really bring people together, as it did [for] my friends, and [we could] have some fun. We actually created the club so that we could continue to play games the following year when we didn't have gym [class] together."

Stonebreaker plans and leads club activities where she teaches the members how to play a card game each week. They play games such as Skip-Bo, Uno, Spoons, Golf, and others that are favorites of the club members.

Stonebreaker says, "I think Card Game Club has positively impacted the students who choose to participate because they put down their phone and actually talk to people and learn to play something new."

In a world where teenagers spend an ever-increasing amount of time on their phones and social media, this is an important aspect. The fact that the club provides an environment that makes students willingly want to participate is a big deal. This can build new friendships and help students have rich school experiences.

Clubs like this and their effects make it apparent just how important it is for schools to allow student input to create activities and clubs they think other students would enjoy. 

Students tend to have the best idea of what their peers like, so if enforced correctly, allowing students to create activities by themselves could potentially increase student involvement. 

Let Riverbend's Card Game Club be an example—a club that is simply fun and unrelated to school but one that encourages participation and happiness. 

And a club like this, which provokes joy in students, is what many students need!