October 25th, 2024, marked Mountain Ridge’s Second Annual Fall Festival. This festival serves as a fundraiser for Ridge’s annual food drive, as students can bring in three cans for free entry or pay a small fee of five dollars. The festival boasted thirteen booths, nine from campus clubs while four came from each grade level of Student Government. Many participants dressed up in Halloween costumes for the event to show festive spirit.
Since Mountain Ridge’s National Honors Society chapter has over 60 members, there were four booths under their name, each with a special activity attached. Two booths were crafts, one making cotton ball ghosts and another making pumpkin candy bags. One NHS booth was for making festive sweets, using chocolate and ice cream cones to make ‘witch hats’. The last stand was a ring toss with a spin–a witch hat ring toss!
Joanne Ko, a senior, worked in the edible NHS booths and said of the experience, “It was really fun to see all the different designs kids and parents made.” She said the atmosphere was very calming and the kids were sweet.
Society of Female Scholars also held a booth at this year’s festival, set up with pink streamers and signs to mark the event. Last year, the club hosted pumpkin painting. SOFS President Jaslynn Pino explains how the club expanded with this year’s activity, saying, “SOFS had three tables with arts and crafts. At table one, you could make a pipe cleaner spider, which was a favorite for the kids. The other two tables had foam pumpkins and ghosts which could be decorated with eyes, stickers, and rhinestones. Then we had another table which had toys kids could take!”
She went on to say that the event was a super fun experience, especially on account of all of the kids. She added that even setting up for the festival was a memorable experience in itself, just to watch the participants in their costumes.
The yearbook set up a Spooky Sodas concessions stand, selling different flavored and custom sodas. It was truly an innovative idea and showcased the creative outlet of the students. Some flavors included Witches Brew, composed of coconut syrup, vanilla syrup, raspberry syrup with Dr Pepper, and Casper, coconut syrup with Sprite.
Sana Klokic, a senior who worked the yearbook booth, said that the beginning of the event was hectic, yet smoothed over as time went by. “Once we got a system down for who is taking orders, who is making the drinks, and who is putting in the ice afterwards, it became more organized and we were able to get customers their orders very quickly.”
Lili Motz, the president of MRHS’s Mentor Club, described their hosted booth. “My booth was an egg on a spoon game but with pumpkins on skeleton hands where kids had to see how fast they could get around a bucket…many raced their friends and got competitive!”
Other clubs that participated in the event were Ridge Film and TV, DECA, FBLA, and Creative Writing. Each club provided a fun, artistic booth to be enjoyed by families visiting the Fall Festival and truly demonstrated the amazing qualities of Mountain Ridge.
