Wonder why mountains of candy and gallons of soda were brought in to ES101? Or try any of the freshly baked cookies?

  The Patriot Plus commission (group focusing on Patriot Plus) from Leadership put on a White Elephant Gift Exchange during Patriot Plus on the first week of December, inviting students of all grade levels to the event. Mrs. Bancheri as well as a handful of students showed up to the event, eager to exchange gifts and munch on the sugar cookies that were provided at the event.

  Kathryn Cyr, one of the commission members, said “People seemed excited to come, they all knew what a white elephant was and they knew cookies would be there so they were pretty happy.”

  One of the students brought in a load of candy and soda to exchange, dispersed amongst those who didn’t bring anything to allow them to participate.

  Cyr said that “There were some people who didn’t bring a present too so I think we should have really said more about that.”

 The exchange also wasn’t that expensive, the gifts brought in had to be under $15, a small gift that wouldn’t exclude people from participating.

 Something that the members wished that they did was to advertise.

 Anton Lauron said that “I would definitely hype it up more and advertise more, so we could reach out to more students and make it a slightly bigger event.”

 Emily Sobolik said “Well the activity was really just for the students at our school but we could advertise more saying that teachers can attend as well!!”

 When asked how they would advertise, Cyr responded that they would “Probably [put up] more posters and put it on HBN and twitter.”

 All of them thought it was a success.

 “I think the idea of it was nice because I got to meet people from other grades which means basically the event reached everyone,” said Thyra Cobbs.

  “Everyone seemed to have fun,” said Cyr.

  They would repeat the event if given the chance, so next year make sure to keep an eye out for the White Elephant Gift Exchange to participate!