Emma Pugh
Interact had its annual pep rally, this year called Inclusion Rocks. Students came wearing their best rock and roll outfits. This year’s focus was to include and celebrate everyone with a disability.
Interact is a school club sponsored by Mrs. Neel, the PSAT and Accelerated English teacher. Interact helps with a wide variety of things. Each year, they have a pep rally, they help all sorts of organizations, and they do lots of volunteer work.
They had several special guests, including a coach from the Special Olympics. They chose the Dolphins coach, which is the Special Olympics swim team. They also had guest speakers, Rebecca Treadway from the ARC and Mrs. Webb. They came and gave amazing speeches to the students.
When interviewing Mrs. Neel, who put together the pep rally, she said it was a challenge but completely worth it. There were several things she and the interact team had to do in preparation for the pep rally. They had to find speakers. They also had to find lots of decorations and pick a theme. Next, they had to rent the gym. Lastly, they had to think of fun games to do. They had a lot of work to do to make this pep rally amazing. They worked together as a team and put together a meaningful and memorable pep rally.
Besides the pep rally, Interact does a lot of other things. They do Field of Dreams, which is a baseball game with kids with special disabilities. They also help with Camp Bold. Camp Bold is a summer camp that the Arc runs over the summer. The Interact kids are counselors and are assigned a buddy with whom they do fun activities with that week. Interact helps with lots of fundraisers, too.
Signing up for the club is very easy. During sign-up week, when clubs put up the QR codes, you just scan the QR code and sign up. Then you give Mrs. Neel the money for your shirt. When you pay for the shirt your in the club. They have meetings every few months to discuss what is coming up and ways you can help.