Kicking off the semester with the week-long Second Semester Shenanigans event from Jan. 2 to Jan. 5 has set high expectations for ASB events for the rest of the school year. During the week, students participated in a variety of fun activities, such as hunting for churros around campus and bringing their own bananas to make ice cream sundaes.

ASB’s main focus for this semester revolves around responding to student concerns. The Student Input Campaign (SIC), which was implemented last year to generate feedback and suggestions from the student body, will be used to address the school’s areas of improvement, for example, improving bathroom conditions. To execute these suggestions, each member of ASB takes on a Personal Capstone Project (PCP), in which he or she creates an event or task that emphasizes a specific focus.

In addition to bettering the Lynbrook campus, ASB will also be introducing several new events. While continuing to host annual events such as Staff Appreciation Week, Hearts Week, Movie Night and the Coffeehouse Talent Show, ASB will also be launching events such as Lynbrook Loves and Autism Awareness.

Lynbrook Loves, a two-week charity event, took place from Jan. 16 to Jan. 26 in collaboration with the nonprofit LifeMoves, a homeless shelter that provides aid to families and individuals in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties. During this time, students were encouraged to donate gently used items, clothes and toiletries. Lynbrook Loves is just one example of the donation drives and charity events that will take place this semester. ASB aims to increase Lynbrook’s community impact, specifically in fundraising as well as raising awareness for mental health and autism.

“It’s good for Lynbrook to give back and for us to be aware of our surroundings,” said junior Diya Jain, a Community Link Commission member. “By donating to those in need, especially people who are so close to us, it’s beneficial to them and to us. This semester, we’re focusing on really connecting Lynbrook to the community.”

Another event is Autism Awareness, which will take place in the month of April. Though ASB is just beginning to plan this event, students can expect speaker series and interactive activities with ACT students. Senior Kai Tsao and junior Kathryn Huang, Community Link Commission and Recognition members respectively, are leading the awareness campaign.

“We’re brainstorming a lot at the moment,” said Tsao. “Overall, it’s an awareness campaign and less of a competition like most of our events. I want to focus on making it a school effort and really raise awareness.”

Events to raise awareness for serious mental disorders or illnesses such as schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorder will occur in May.

“One of the difficulties you have doing that will definitely be trying to make sure we phrase it correctly because at the same time we’re not doctors and we have very little idea of what we’re talking about in the scheme of things,” said ASB vice president senior Sally Kim. “I think we’re trying to find a balance between showing awareness and showing respect.”

This year, ASB will also be bringing back IDC Fantastics, the FUHSD intra-district rally, on March 23 at Homestead High School. Due to logistical information and difficulty coordinating a single date where all five schools in the district were available, the event was not hosted last year, so freshmen and sophomores have yet to experience the exciting games and rally. At the moment, IDC representatives from each school, including Lynbrook’s IDC representatives and seniors Anushka Srivastava and Alison Chen, are working together to create relay games and contests.

Not only will the event include new activities, it will place more emphasis on district unity rather than inter-school competition. To even out the playing field, pre-training for events may be prohibited.

“A lot of the time, many people forget we’re also trying to promote district pride,” said Srivastava. “Yes, it is about Viking Pride but we also want to emphasize that together we’re strong. This year we’ll try to put a little more emphasis on unity as a whole.”

ASB is currently working on coordinating events and implementing necessary changes on campus to ensure a memorable second semester, looking to revamp old events in addition to launching new ones.