Characters for Care, Emily Lekas (’21)

Why did you decide to start/take over this club?

Well, the previous president was graduating when I was becoming a junior, and this was a club that I really loved, and I wanted to have a leadership position and so I decided to run for president because she was graduating.

What is the purpose or goal of your club?

Characters for Care is a club that runs sales at Bolles to buy costumes, and then we dress up in those Disney costumes and act in character when we visit children with special needs, because often children with special needs can’t visit Disney due to various complications, and we believe is above that every child deserves some Disney magic. So we bring Disney magic to them. The various organizations or schools that we visited are JSA, (Jacksonville School of Autism), Northeast Florida School of Special Education, and SSE.

Why should people join your club?

You should join my club because it’s a great way to pursue a person’s passion if they love acting or interacting with kids or dress up, anything like that. And combine that with a way to serve the greater community. So if anyone’s interested in getting involved with the special needs community, there is a need for more volunteers and more involvement, more awareness. So this is a really fun club. I think it’s something really unique, like I’ve never heard of anything like this. So if you love Disney or if you love acting – and you don’t have to have experience with interacting with children. I didn’t have that much experience coming into the club. I had just babysat a couple children with special needs before. So this was a way for me to really get more involved and I’ve learned so much and
being able to serve this community is something that was really special.

What upcoming activities has your club planned?

We just had a hot chocolate sale, we raised almost $120. We have had brownie sales, cookie sales, hot chocolate sales, bundtini sales, we essentially just do sweet sales.

Bird Club, Sophia Landy (’22)

Why did you decide to start/take over this club?

Okay, well, I’ve always personally been interested in birds and wildlife conservation, and I’m a new junior. I was really interested in starting this club and studying birds and learning more about them, and just kind of creating a nice group of people.

What is the purpose or goal of your club?

Okay, so our goal, as of now is to fundraise for the Audubon Society, which is money that goes towards bird and wildlife conservation and environmental stuff. And as well as raising awareness of like, I guess, the wildlife but specifically, you know, birds. And we do this through the fundraising as well as we have little nature bird watching sessions throughout the year. We’ve had about two this year, and they’re open to anyone. So we just like to go out. We bring binoculars, and we like to go out to certain observation points and wildlife preservation centers and walk around and spend time looking at animals and life.

Why should people join your club?

You should join it if you have an interest in learnin

Sophia Landyg about wildlife, not just birds, you have an interest in preserving the environment. So then you should join it because I think it just gives a broader perspective on all the opportunities that you have in this area [wildlife].

What upcoming activities has your club planned?

Yeah, so we’re planning on right now we’re designing t-shirts to fundraise to be able to be worn on Spirit days. And we’re hopefully planning this year to go to a bird Rescue Center and volunteer or tour the center and learn more about that process. And then also our bird watching sessions.

Gay-Straight Alliance, Grace Maroon (’21)

Why did you decide to start/take over this club?

So we had noticed that, you know, existing as LGBT people at Bolles, that we didn’t really have a safe place, we wanted to have a place for LGBT people and our allies so that would could talk about stuff out in the open and feel safe, like nobody was going to judge us for anything. And of course, part of it was that we were going to raise money and help some local LGBT foundations in Jacksonville, so that’s how we started with [donating to] JASMYN house.

What is the purpose or goal of your club?

So we are to foster an understanding between straight allies at Bolles and our gay students at Bolles, or trans students at Bolles. We wanted to foster an understanding and create a safe for them to be able to express themselves.

Why should people join your club?

It’s fun! We have a lot of fun, we have a lot of morning meetings that’s just us hanging out and like doing arts and crafts. We’re always open to people coming, you do not have to be gay to join our club, we have a lot of straight allies that help us out. And it’s educational!

What upcoming activities has your club planned?

We work with the JASMYN house, it’s a house in downtown Jacksonville. Basically, what they do, is they provide a place for LGBT people to go if they just want to meet other gay people in Jacksonville, or if they don’t have a safe home life and they just want a place to go during the day or after school, just a safe place for them to go where there’s other gay people there. They do a lot of talks about STDS and HIV testing, so it provides a lot of resources for LGBT people who might not have the means to get support. So we do a lot of sales for that.