By: Alexis LeMieux

The Supportive Peers Spring Fling event happened on April 4.  “We had it our very first year. So this will be the fifth year of the program,” Supportive Peers organizer Tess Rivero said.

This year, the event took place at Bellbrook High School between 10 am and 12 pm. You did not have to be a Supportive Peers Member to attend, and it was available for the whole community.

“I just think it’s a great way for our community to come together,” Rivero said. “Everyone seems to have a really good time.”

Sophomore Marissa Gainer is in charge of planning this event. Rather than being given this role, Gainer took it upon herself to do it. “I volunteered to be one of the leaders of the club. Leaders take on different events, and I took upon Spring Fling,” Gainer said.

What happened previously at the event must be carefully considered, so that not too many factors are repeated.

“Every year, we want to do some of the things we’ve done in the previous years, but not exactly. So, we start with the blueprint of what we did the previous year,” Rivero said.

“I based some things on what was done previously. I talked to Rivero about what was popular and what wasn’t,” Gainer said. “She had ideas about things we could do differently this year and I came up with my own ideas of what kids would like.”

“She [Gainer] has decided all the crafts and everything,” Rivero said.

Activities: 

The event featured an easter egg hunt, various spring crafts, a HOSA little clinic, animals, dirt pudding, snow cones, an inflatable obstacle course, and in the gym, remote control cars.

“We’re going to have face painting, because everyone loves face painting,” Rivero said. “Then, a couple new things we’re doing: we’re bringing in some caricature artists (so people can sketch your funny little picture real quick).”

Another new thing that came to the event was Nex Playground, a dancing station. “It tracks the movements of the people playing. It has different games, like fruit ninja and racing games,” Gainer said.

“It’s a little game cube,” Rivero said. “And you hook it up. We’re going to have a smart board down there. It’s kind of like a Wii, but not exactly like a Wii.”

Volunteering:

“You don’t have to be a part of the program to attend or volunteer,” Gainer said.

“And the high school kids volunteering have just as much fun, if not more fun than the younger kids,” Rivero said.

Setup:

Setup for the event included making instructions for volunteers, cutting supplies needed, and making examples for crafts. And on the day of, things were rearranged and organized where they needed to go.

A common struggle for this event seems to be picking the date.

“Every year it’s hard to choose a good date for the Spring Fling because Easter changes all the time. And then with our spring break, we lose those two weekends around it, because people aren’t here, so we aren’t going to do it then,” Rivero said. “Sometimes, we’re like, ‘Wait, we can’t really have an Easter Bunny after Easter.’ I can’t have it too early, it’s too cold. I can’t have it too late, because Spring has the Sugar Maple Festival.”

“We get a little trapped with time, but we like to have the Easter Bunny. This year we will have the Easter Bunny, because it’s the Saturday before Easter,” Rivero said. “We’re still going to be, you know, bunnying.”

The event began when the Supportive Peers members, around 20-25 the first year of the program, initially came together to plan out a Christmas event. Following the success of the Christmas event, they figured they would do a Spring event, as well.  

“We didn’t have plans yet going into the year. We didn’t have specific plans for outside events,” Rivero said. “It was kind of like, ‘Hey, maybe we should do a Christmas event. Hey, the Christmas event was great, why don’t we do a spring event?’ That was kind of how it happened.”