Unity Week brings ‘Stoga together by tearing the grades apart

By Brittany Roker, Community Relations Editor

Throughout the week of Feb. 13, Peer Mediation sponsored Unity Week, an event designed to bring the school together.

Peer Mediator and senior Zach Fox said that Unity Week was a multitasked event that had two goals in mind.

“In one aspect, we are trying to increase awareness of a lot peace leaders and a lot of really big powerful figures that have really contributed in bringing a lot of global events together which is why we put the peace leader posters up all around the school,” Fox said.  “In another aspect, on a smaller scale, it’s an effort to collaborate and [bring] the school together.”

The ‘Stogalympics were competitions between all of the grades that added to this big effort.

“The grades were competing against each other to win this huge trophy that we got,” said Peer Mediator and senior Justine Shank.  “They could get points by participating in spirit days [and in] the floor hockey tournament–the team that won got points toward their grade.”

Both Fox and Shank played a large part in Unity Week.  Fox, Peace Boy, and Shank, Peace Girl, roamed around school and gave candies to students who approached them with a peace fact.  They also appeared on the morning announcements to further advertise Unity Week.  One of the slogans they used was “Conestoga Unity Week: Bringing the School Together by Tearing the Grades Apart.”

Overall, Fox thought Unity Week went quite well.

“I think we realized that the spirit would be a problem because people tend to not dress up for the spirit days,” Fox said.  “I think that was as successful as we thought.”

Shank said that one part of Unity Week in particular really increased participation.

“The floor hockey tournament helped a lot with getting people excited,” Shank said.  “I thought it was good timing to put the floor hockey tournament in Unity Week, which is usually later in the year.”

Looking ahead, Fox hopes that Unity Week will have a growing presence at ‘Stoga.

“I hope everybody got what they wanted out of it,” Fox said.  “It was supposed to be a fun week.  I hope that it will keep happening for years to come and it will get bigger and bigger.”

Brittany Roker can be reached at broker@stoganews.com.