Students could sign up for the National Honors Society. The NHS is a new club at Palo Alto High School, according to junior vice president Katy Abbott.
– Hae-Lin Cho
Paly students set a record today by offering approximately 67 different campus clubs for students to sign up for, today, at this year’s annual Club Day, according to Associated Student Body advisor Matthew Hall. Hundreds of students flooded the quad, exploring all the various clubs during today’s extended lunch.
Both old and new clubs were present at the various booths in front of the student center.
Among Paly’s myriad of community service orriented clubs present today was the R.E.A.D club.
“The club basically funds education in Papua New Guinea,” Vice President Kevin Zhang said. “Right now, the average Papua New Guinean receives about two years of education out of the required nine.”
Zhang plans to raise money through donations and various fundraising events.
The Bike Club is also a new addition to the Paly. Led by Sophomore Andrew Watson, the club meets every Tuesday after school. It plans to meet for discussions regarding weekend bike trips.
“I wanted to start a Bike Club because I’ve always enjoyed biking,” Watson said.
Watson hopes that this club will bring together high schoolers with similar interests.
Another new club on the Paly campus is the Cheese Club. According to the president, senior Claire Simons, the club will meet once a month during lunch and sample new cheeses.
“I’ve always had a fascination for gourmet foods and cheeses,” Simons said. “Cheese allows you to delve deep into a country’s culture.”
Members of the Cheese Club will also discuss the history and culture of the cheese they eat. Simon plans to offer samples of Blue, Gorgonzola and Roquefort cheeses.
Of course, many well-known clubs from previous years were present with new plans for the coming year.
Key Club, one of the biggest clubs at Paly, raised over $40,000 last year for charitable causes, and under new leadership hopes to do even better this year.
“We have a much more diverse board this year; most of our board was graduating seniors last year,” Last year’s president Alex Liu said. “This year’s members are also more committed.”
Key Club, YCS-Interact and various other community service clubs with booths at Club Day will offer many community service opportunities for Paly students throughout the year.
Members of Paly’s various competitive clubs such as Science Olympiad and Robotics were out in large numbers representing their teams and showing off their trophies and inventions.
Although Paly’s Science Olympiads club is a long time establishment, it has new goals planned for next year.
“We hope to win States and go to Nationals this year,” Club President junior Jeffrey Ling said.”We won regionals and were second at state last year, so we hope [to win States] this year.”
Like Sci-Oly, Paly Robotics is hoping to take it one step further this year.
“In previous years we’ve always made it to Regionals, but we haven’t made it to nationals in four or five years,” junior Sergey Smirnov said.
With the countless number of clubs available this year at Paly, there is almost sure to be a club, either old or new, to cater to everybody’s interests.