With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, a sense of love fills the Carlmont halls and ASB becomes hard at work in order to create the annual, personalized heart decorations.
Greta Foehr, a junior and member of ASB, said, “It’s that time of year again! ASB has finally begun making Carlmont’s infamous Valentine’s Day decorations that will be hung up in the hallways on Feb. 14. This is one of my favorite activities ASB holds as it creates such a positive and inclusive atmosphere for students while spreading the traditional love of Valentine’s Day.”
Every year, ASB decorates the halls with handmade Valentine’s Day hearts for each student at Carlmont that includes a personalized message with the student’s name on it.
Sophomore Natalie Silfvast said, “I always look forward to ASB’s Valentine’s Day activities, especially the personalized hearts, because walking into the hallway and seeing all of those heart decorations really gets me into the Valentine’s Day spirit and shows how much work ASB actually puts in at Carlmont.”
According to members of ASB, the process of making the heart decorations is tedious and requires a lot of dedicated time outside of school in order to assure that all 2000 students at Carlmont receive a heart.
Soni Kanaya, a junior and member of ASB’s recognition committee, said, “A lot of dedication goes into preparing for Valentine’s Day as we want to ensure that every student is able to participate in our activities. For the individual heart decorations alone, ASB began preparations in October as there is a lot of double checking and organization that goes into making them, such as making sure we don’t misspell any names and that we don’t miss a student.”
Along with this, members of ASB have been staying after school extremely late and must come to school early on Valentine’s Day in order to properly tape all of the hearts up in C-hall in alphabetical order.
“Creating the hearts first starts with drafting the design of the hearts, as well as the jokes or messages that will be included. We then make a huge amount of copies, cut them out, and hole punch them, which is extremely time-consuming and is why we begin preparing in October,” said Foehr. “Then, we print out a list of student names and go through each student to see if they have a nickname that they would rather have written on the heart, in order to feel more personalized. Finally, we string the hearts and sort them alphabetically to prepare for the morning of Valentine’s Day.”
Personalized hearts are not the only activity ASB has in store for Valentine’s Day. Other commissions are also preparing a kissing booth that gives out free chocolate, post-it notes that have positive messages on the bathroom mirrors, and special Valentine’s Day gifts for the Carlmont staff.
With all of these intricate activities, ASB aims to provide a way for students who do not actively participate in school events to feel included and a part of the Carlmont community, all while spreading love and Valentine’s Day cheer.
Becky Kosovsky, a senior and member of ASB, said, “I cannot wait to see C-hall filled with heart decorations. My favorite part of the day is seeing students’ reactions to seeing their name on a heart, especially the freshmen who have never experienced the activity before. I love seeing students’ eyes light up, it feels really special to receive your own individual heart, especially in such a big school where you can easily feel lost in the crowd.”
