ASB Holds First Online Spirit Week
From March 23-27, Peninsula’s Associated Student Body (ASB) composed the first Virtual Spirit Week for all Peninsula students to participate in by posting daily tasks on Instagram stories. This idea was created by members of ASB, including ASB President and senior Sydney Choi and ASB Commissioners of Spirit junior Megan Hwang, junior Ke’ala Kato and senior Lorhen Domondon, to make up for students not being able to participate in person due the district-wide school closure caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19). The goal for this spirit week was to make Peninsula’s student body feel united on social media despite the nationwide stay-at-home order, which requires everyone to stay inside their homes, with the exception of leaving for certain essential reasons.
“We want our Panthers to feel as if our school spirit never left, even though we are not physically at school,” Choi said.
On March 22, Peninsula’s Instagram account @pvphs posted a schedule about each day’s theme for students to participate in via their Instagram stories. Monday’s theme was “Miss You Monday,” where students posted about anything or anyone they miss. Tuesday’s theme was “TikTok Tuesday,” and students and faculty posted short dances or jokes from social media application TikTok. Wednesday’s theme was “Whatcha Watching Wednesday,” asking students to post a television show or movie they were watching at that time. Thursday’s theme was “Spring Thursday,” where students post a photo of nature and where they wish they were at on Spring Break. Friday’s theme was “Black and Gold Friday,” where students shared their favorite photos of The Zoo decked out in Peninsula colors.
“When I would click through the Instagram stories, I was overwhelmed with the love for Peninsula that everyone shared,” Hwang said. “It was amazing to see teachers and even parents participating.”
ASB explained that the success of this Virtual Spirit Week relied on team effort. Although there were certain people who came up with the ideas for each day, everyone on ASB made sure to post advertisements on social media. This way everyone knew what to post on what day, and those who participated would feel the school spirit of the panther family again. Boys’ Commissioner of Athletics and senior Troy Simpkins explained that he was a little skeptical about the idea at first because he was not sure how many students would actually participate.
“To my suprise, there was more participation than I could have imagined,” Simpkins said. “It was amazing to see how much the students truly love Peninsula and how well the panther family can keep up the school spirit, even from home.”
