Last week’s Charity Week event raised funds for ACCESS, a nonprofit founded to support the Arab-American community. Over three days, students who purchased a blue passport could attend a selection of activities, culminating in a pep rally on the final day lasting just over an hour.
Preceding the event, a memorial was held for Edsel Ford counselor Ibrahim Baydoun, who passed away late last month. Principal Hassan and a student council member spoke fondly of Mr. Baydoun, with the council member, Jamal, describing the support he received from Mr. Baydoun during his time as an athlete at Edsel Ford, and Mrs. Hassan paying her respects to him for his contributions to the school.
“Thank you a thousand times, and may you rest in peace,” the principal said to the departed counselor. With the end of the memorial, the first of four pep rally games began.
Each game involved volunteering students across all four grades competing against students from other grades. Freshmen always played alongside Freshmen and competed against Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors, for example.
The first game was Musical Chairs. The game was very competitive, with each contestant carefully adjusting his or her walking speed as the circle of players rotated around the chairs, of which there was one fewer than there were players in the circle. When the music stopped, the players all rushed to find a seat among the chairs, with the player left standing exiting from the game.
As the player count decreased, the contestants grew more aggressive; one Junior threw himself into a chair at such a speed that he and the chair fell over, and one younger player became so frustrated that when the music stopped playing, he grabbed the chair by its back and pulled it away from the circle to stop anyone from sitting in it. In addition to this, many players found themselves sharing a chair with someone else, leading to several games of rock-paper-scissors being held to decide who goes on.
The second game was a race to push inflatable mattresses across the gym using momentum from running and jumping on them. The contestants lined up in rows by grade and, one at a time per row, ran up to their row’s mattress and jumped onto it, causing it to slide. When all of the mattresses were at the other end of the gym, the players all ran to the other end and started the next round.
In this game, smaller players did best; due to their lighter weights, they could gain speed faster running up and then put less force down onto the mattresses during the slide. Ultimately, the sophomores won.
The third game was a recreation of Hungry Hungry Hippos in which one student lay stomach-down on a square cart and held a basket upside-down in front of them while another directed and moved the cart using the first student’s legs. Four pairs at once, one from each grade, would form a circle around scattered foam dodgeballs and move to catch as many dodgeballs as possible using the baskets.
This game ended with confusion; it wasn’t clear who actually had won at first, and then the organizers declared that the Sophomores had won because the Freshmen had cheated. Mr. Pheil, the Freshmen Vice Principal, overruled this and demanded that the Freshmen be awarded the game. This ultimately did not matter as all grades participated in the fourth and final game.
The final game was dodgeball. Two teams of about five, each team from a different grade, would throw a set number of foam balls at members of the opposing team, with each hit player leaving the game. These players could reenter the game if a member of either team threw a ball into the basket on the other side of the uncrossable center line, which would allow all players from the team of the thrower to come back in.
The Juniors won the first round against the Seniors after a tense one-versus-four fight. In the following round, the Freshmen faced the Sophomores, and the Sophomores won. The Sophomores also won against the Juniors in the third round, and prior to the final round against the Staff, they received a new unexpected team member: the unmasked Thunderbird, who revealed himself after some difficulty removing the mascot’s head.
In the end, the Sophomores were able to win against the Staff in the final round. As the end of the event drew near, the organizers wheeled out a projector to play a sort of thank-you video, but after the audio failed to play and some communication difficulties, the students were allowed to leave without the final amount of accumulated donations being announced. Had the video played properly, it would have been revealed that the final amount raised was $5,000.