“Hosting the winter dance this year is going to be one of our biggest fundraisers to help bring us to our $5,000 dollar goal, so we are really hoping we are able to turn a big profit off of the dance,” said S2S member and Junior, Madison Cooper.
The cost per scholarship is $50 and includes tuition and other supplies for a student to attend high school for one year. The clubs goal is to raise $5000 worth of scholarships.

“We feel that the dance is a great fundraiser because it can get the entire community of the school working together to help the students of Sierra Leon,” said S2S’s President and Senior, Kirsten Slaughter.

The theme is a Winter Dance with a focus on being a better global citizen. Tickets for the dance will be $10 and will have a special perk this year; everyone who buys a ticket will be entered into win a $100 cash prize, as well other smaller prizes.

“It is wonderful that the students in S2S are so willing and eager to help others in a distant place. It says a lot about today’s young people that they are willing to give up their time, energy, and money to help kids their age that they will probably never meet,” says S2S’s Sponsor and History teacher, Mark Foley. “It says a lot about UHS that this group was created by students, who are now on the verge of making a real difference in the world. I’m honored to be a part of it.”

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 in the conference room. It ends at around 6:30 p.m. The sponsor is not Urbana Free Library. The leader of the club is Gracie Carfasher.
After a few questions it was reached that anime club is a safe place for teenagers who like Anime Club, it’s just for teenagers, made by teenagers. And you only hear about Anime Club from people who are in Anime Club, who think you will enjoy coming to it.

“I love Anime Club. Not many people know about anime club, but if you know about Anime Club you are a friend to everyone who goes to anime club,” said Sophomore Naomi Geores.

“At Anime Club we don’t allow anyone to hurt anyone else’s feelings, we consider all anime equally, and if anyone says other wise we have a heated discussion about it,” said Gracie Newberry, one of the leaders of the group.

“Anime Club started because some of my friends from the high school came up to me and asked why the library didn’t have any clubs for teenagers. I then asked them what kinds of clubs they wanted and they told me some type of Anime Club, that they could talk about anime and not get looked at like a weirdo,” said the leader, Nacie Carmakler, a Librarian at the Urbana Free Library.

Anime Club meets every Friday evening at 5 in the conference room. It ends at around 6:30 p.m. The sponsor is not Urbana Free Library. The leader of the club is Gracie Carfasher.

After a few questions it was reached that anime club is a safe place for teenagers who like Anime Club, it’s just for teenagers, made by teenagers. And you only hear about Anime Club from people who are in Anime Club, who think you will enjoy coming to it.

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Every year, following auditions, the group starts putting in great effort to prepare for the concerts. They meet for practice every Tuesday and Thursday at 7 a.m. With no accompaniment other than their voices, all members must be dedicated.

“VCR performs popular repertoire that is for their audience to get into. They debuted their repertoire on their album recorded in 2009,” says UHS choral director, Torance Douse.

Aside from performing at every choir concert the high school holds, VCR is asked to sing locally. The Christmas Season is an especially busy time for the group.

Junior Hannah Gottlieb-Graham, a VCR member, says, “Basically VCR is a club in which some of Urbana’s most talented singers can express themselves in a more open setting than a chorus class taken for credit. We spend our mornings balancing singing together and just goofing around and bonding, but we definitely get a lot of progress done even though we’re all tired. My favorite part of being in VCR is meeting all the amazing talent in our school and getting to know each person and their voice as an individual.”

The group’s hard work will be on display at the UHS Music Showcase on November 1st and 10th. The concert will be held in the Oscar Adams Gym.

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Last year was Fundamental Things Club’s first year at Urbana High School. The group’s goal was to give the fundamental things in life to people who might not have them otherwise, so they decided to raise money for Heifer International, a charity that sends animals to third world countries and teaches the people there to use them in a way that they can benefit the most from them. Fundamental Things sold t-shirts as a fundraiser, but many of their fundraising plans fell through.


This year, the group decided to start new with a smaller charity that they can work more closely with, called Kids Give. Senior Kirsten Slaughter, the club’s president, found out about Kids Give over the summer. 
“I believe that Kids Give is a great opportunity to start improving the world one child at a time. Education is such a valuable thing that everyone should be exposed to and have the opportunity cherish,” Slaughter said.

The organization began taking service trips to Sierra Leone in 2009, and their next trip is planned to take place in December 2011. S2S will be helping Kids Give award scholarships to students at St. Mary’s Secondary School in Kukuya, Kambia. This is the first and only high school in Kakuya. 


By joining SJC to raise money for Kids Give, S2S can get their name out there in a bigger sense. 
We are able to get the support of the school and really push to make a difference,” Slaughter said. “By working together we can bring the school together under one common cause of bringing social justice, not just to our school but to the world.”

To fundraise, S2S is going to have rake-a-thons on Sundays. 
The club meets every Wednesday in Foley’s room.
 “If you are interested in making a difference in the world then this is the place for you!” says Slaughter.

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Davis is not alone in his love for chess here at UHS. Davis’ first year here in 2008, he and a few students started out what latter evolved into the UHS Chess Team. The team began as a small club of a few students who met once or twice a week in Davis’ room to play.

One of these students was Junior Sven Cambell, who joined in the 2009-2010 school year, and along with Davis, is perhaps the last of the old breed of hardcore UHS chess players, most of whom having left last year along with the class of 2011.

“For me personally, chess has played a very important role in my life because it was a good way to bond with my father and brother when I was younger, and as I got older I realized that chess is a universal game which requires no language to bond over. From Cuba to Russia people play chess, and chess is played all over the world without problems. No war or conflict has revolved around chess, and that can’t be said about most other things,” said Cambell.

The chess team’s main rival, University Laboratory High School (Uni), is in for a world of pain this year said Davis, who said that he has a secret plan to defeat Uni this year come regionals. “I like a challenge” said Davis.

With most of the ranks of the chess teams cadres depleted, the team is made up of mostly fresh faces this year, and has some very promising players according to Davis.

“I want to learn chess,” said Sophomore Roc Basi, one of the fresh faces in the UHS chess team ” I am firm in my belief that under Mr. Davis we will be led to victory over Uni!”

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Juniors Kirsten Slaughter, Mikhala Eveland and Elena Wentworth wanted to start a club to benefit people in poorer countries after learning about the conflict in Darfur in their AP Prep World Studies Social Studies class sophomore year. Fundamental Things Club is what sprouted from this idea.
This year Slaughter and Wentworth took charge of advancing the club which Social Studies teacher Mark Foley sponsors. Fundamental Things Club has been meeting once a week for lunch all year long to discuss world problems and the best ways to help.
“The Fundamental Things Club is dedicated to giving the fundamentals of life to as many people as possible,” Slaughter said. “We want to provide healthy nutrition, an income large enough for all kids to go to school, and a strong roof.”
Eventually, the group decided raising money for Heifer International, an organization that sends animals to people in poor areas and teaches them how to benefit from such animals, would be an effective way to help their cause. The group decided to work towards the goal of sending a “Milk Menagerie,” which includes a heifer, two goats and a water buffalo. A family who receives animals from the Milk Menagerie and training would be able to produce gallons of milk each day.
Fundamental Things Club came up with several fundraising ideas, like having a walkathon or benefit concert, but the idea that really stuck was to make t-shirts to sell. Junior Zelda Galewsky, a Fundamental Things Club member, designed the shirts. On the front the shirt reads “one love” and the back says “and one cow, one sheep, one goat, one heifer” to promote the club’s goals for fundraising for Heifer.
The group meets in Foley’s room each Wednesday at lunch. Shirts are for sale in Mark Foley’s room. Red shirts are $15 and white are $10. For more information about Heifer International visit heifer.org.
“Any student who wants to try to make a real impact on big problems like world hunger, poverty, or refugees should consider adding their energy to our group,” said Foley. “And sometimes we have free cookies. Which is a bonus.”

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Harmony Week was very successful at Urbana High School this year. The event took place the week after UHS students returned from spring break. It began on Tuesday and ended Friday.

“Harmony week is a week-long program sponsored by the UHS student senate program,” said Senior and Senate Coordinator of Harmony Week, Mandy Facer. “One hundred students come together to learn how to be tolerant of one another and positively contribute to our community.”

Student Senate has been busily preparing Harmony Week for the last few months and has worked hard to making sure the week went on without a hitch. “It was better than last year. Mandy put a lot of work into it and it all paid off,” said Senior Group Leader Morgan Copper.

“I decided to do Harmony Week because I like to spend time with positive people and talk about issues that are important,” said Senior CiCi Stewart.

Tuesday was the first day of the event. Students were divided up into about ten groups that had two group leaders who were members of the Student Senate. The groups were very diverse and many students met people that they had never met before. “I liked getting to know everybody,” said Freshmen Amber Marion.

The groups played various icebreaker games. Then Emily Warren and some other members of Ellen Dahlke’s English class presented a PowerPoint presentation about rape.

The following day, students met during seventh and eighth hour to listen to Dr. Laura Taylor and Travis Courson talk about bullying, harassment, cyber bulling, etc. Then special education teacher, Cristina Godoy talked about disability awareness. She provided UHS students with activities that stimulated what it would be like to have dyslexia and autism.

On Thursday, Jason Epperson spoke about his humanitarian work and talked about the different countries he has been to and why it is important to help people.

“I felt like the students got a lot out of it [Harmony Week] and are excited to go and change the world and community after Jason’s talk about being a humanitarian,” said Cooper.

Master Hwong was also scheduled to come and teach the students Taekwondo, but did not make it to the presentation. His two freshmen assistances Chang-hee Lee and Niknaz Iranmanesh did an excellent job of taking over the students and teaching them Taekwondo. “That was difficult. However, through the efforts of the students, group leaders and Senora Alvarez, we were able to recover and still have a good time,” said Facer.

On Friday, the final day of Harmony Week, students gathered during fifth and sixth hour in the Auditorium and created encouraging posters that will be hung in the hallways and enjoyed a celebration lunch.

It can be confirmed without a doubt that this year’s Harmony Week was great. The hard work done by the senators and Student Senate advisor, Yvonne Alvarez-Cortes was definitely worth it.

“This is my second year hosting the event and I feel this year went even better than the last,” said Facer. “I’m grateful for the lessons Harmony Week teaches everyone, and I know I learned a few things myself.”