Costa celebrates Women’s History Month with assembly

Costa celebrates Women’s History Month with assembly

By Natasha Randeniya

Assistant News Editor and Mclean Grimes

Link Crew advisor Maddie Hutchinson organized the first-ever Women’s History Month Assembly to highlight successful women on Thursday during office hours.

The assembly began with a homeroom video on Tuesday about the history of Women’s History Month. During office hours on Thursday, several clubs on campus had the opportunity to host a booth, including Black Scholars Union (BSU), Link Crew, Friendship Club, Latino Scholars Union (LSU), American Sign Language (ASL) classes, Jewish Cultural Club, Gay Straight Alliance (GSA), and others.

“I’m really happy with this event because Link Crew has connected with all these different cultural and identity based clubs who are going to be centering and amplifying women from their culture,” said Hutchinson.

At the assembly, booths presented information about successful women in various fields. In addition, the booths held a variety of interactive activities and prizes including candy, bracelets, and chalk.

“We participated in the assembly to celebrate and honor Jewish women in history,” said Jewish Cultural Club Vice President Ryann Levine. “Our booth offered extra information about different Jewish women [and] goodies having to do with some of the women we chose and the Jewish Cultural Club.”

To prepare for the assembly, Hutchinson messaged Costa Link Leaders to see who would be available to help. Club leaders who participated were then invited onto a GroupMe message, attended several planning meetings, and created posters for their table.

“Researching the women featured in our presentation was an interesting way for me to learn about some of the trailblazers who have overcome significant obstacles to reach excellence in their fields,” said senior Friendship

Club co-President Gemma Burstein. “I researched six inspiring women with disabilities and wrote a short biography on each to be featured on an informational poster.”

According to Hutchinson, the biggest challenge in hosting the event was the limited time left to organize the assembly after deciding to host it late in the year. She hopes that next year she can start planning it earlier in February.

“I’m really proud of what all the groups have been able to create in the short amount of time we have had,” said Hutchinson.

Hutchinson organized the assembly because she realized that there was not a school-wide celebration for Women’s History Month and she felt it was something missing from campus. She is grateful to each club who planned and participated in order to put the event on.

“I’m so thankful for each of the clubs that stepped up and decided to participate,” said Hutchinson. “I’m really excited by the idea of so much diversity of perspective and walks of life being represented and how cool it is to see everyone come together and celebrate in this case women.”

According to Hutchinson, she hopes that students who participate were able to walk away learning something about a woman that they haven’t heard of before or that they didn’t know much about.

“On this campus, what tends to happen with cultural celebrations is that it happens once during one month [with] just that group,” said Hutchinson. “What I’d love to see more of is all of these groups coming together and having booths side by side so that there’s a fuller representation.”