The Peace and Justice Club held its first official meeting this past Friday October 2nd. In case you’ve been living under Black Tom’s pirate hat, the Peace and Justice Club (commonly known as the PJs) is a huge social justice club at STA. They are divided into four quads with both student and teacher leaders. Each quad holds events like dances, food drives, and coffee houses to fundraise for local, national and international charities. Everyone meets in the cafeteria after school every Friday for snacks, talks from guest speakers, and to plan for upcoming events. Every year hundreds of Raiders join this worthy cause and this year is no exception.
The PJs orientation was on September 25th, where rules were explained, icebreaker games were played and ice cream was consumed! All of the quad teachers and student executives were introduced as well as this year’s PJs chairs: Clare Rayment and Christeen Salik.
For this year’s first official meeting on the 2nd, we welcomed Father Mike Anderson from St. Dominic’s Parish to talk to the PJs about what social justice is, and to bless them and pray for a successful year. Father Mike encouraged the students to voice their perspectives on social justice. With their stomachs filled with snacks and their minds filled with wisdom, the PJs went off to start planning the first events of the year. For Quad 1, that was the quickly approaching feeder school dance on October 29th, Quad 2 discussed the Thanksgiving food drive, and Quads 3 and 4 starting planning for the coffee house in November. Overall it was a very successful meeting and a great start to another year of social justice!