The week of April 6^th, AHS was transformed into a place where, more than ever, there was a high focus on bonding, togetherness, and unifying. The cause for this was AHS’s second Unity Week, a week dedicated to essentially bringing attention to the similarity of all the students at our school, and to forge new friendships by encouraging students to maybe step out of their comfort zones, and to talk to people who they might not usually talk to.

“Our goal with Unity Week is to encourage students to talk to someone who they might not have realized could be a potential friend. We try to inspire students to realize how much they have in common with each other. We have different cultures here, only I don’t think so many people realize that,” AHS counselor Josh Berro said.

On Wednesday April 8^th, students were each given a bracelet upon walking into the school. There were several different colors of bracelets, each which corresponded with a table in the commons. Colored signs marked the tables, and there were two or three of each color dispersed around the cafeteria.

“As school counselors, we strive to bring people together. I realize that one week is not a lot of time, and that it is most likely that students will most likely not have enough time to forge lifelong friendships, but our goal is to get students thinking about new ideas, similarities, and differences, and I think Unity Week does just that,” Berro said.

The second event of Unity Week was the cultural carnival, which took place in the Skier Dome at lunch on Thursday. Students and teachers alike represented many countries, and most had food and posters at their tables, which explained and best represented their country of choice. Some students chose a country that was part of their heritage. For example, sophomore Paxton Seward, Liza Vecchiarello, and Nakiri Gallagher-Cave set up a table representing Cambodia. Their table featured Cambodian-English dictionaries, traditional Cambodian scarves and paintings, souvenirs that the girls had collected from various visits, and delicious spring rolls that disappeared within minutes. Other students chose a country because it was a requirement for a class, or simply because they were interested in learning more about it.

“We chose to represent Corsica because we had a lot of interest in the Island, and it was a cool place and really pretty. I learned a lot, such as that Corsica is 85 miles from France and it’s very famous for it’s sea oriented food,” senior Sophie Dasaro said.

The Prostart cooking class simply chose their country for its interesting and unique cuisine.

“We collaborated for a while in [our Prostart] class, and after a while we decided to cook traditional Slovakian food, because it’s unique, interesting, and tastes pretty great,” junior Gio Velasquez said.

Overall, the cultural carnival was a large success, and definitely a student favorite of Unity Week. However, the week was not done yet. The final event took place on Friday, and was an Ex Ed scavenger hunt. Posters were hung around the school, each with pictures, drawings, quotes and a definition of what Ex Ed meant to that group, and to our school. On Friday, the Ex Ed groups got together and searched for posters based on clues that were handed out prior to the scavenger hunt. This put more emphasis on Ex Ed then in past years, where there has only been a slideshow at the end of the year.

“I look at Unity Week as basically an extension of Ex Ed. They are both opportunities to get to know new people, and explore diversity in our school,” Berro said.

Certainly, Unity Week is a wonderful one in our school, but Berro said he is uncertain if it is a tradition that will continue. Students will need to motivate if we would like to have Unity Week in the years to come.

“We need it to be student driven,” Berro said. “Emily, Mary Cate, Tameira and I are here to oversee everything, but we need student motivation behind it, and if that doesn’t happen, it is unlikely that this week will continue in the future.”