Senior Krysten Vaughn cares deeply for her community, and hopes to tend to their well-being by keeping the student body informed through raising awareness for issues within her community.

“I think the purpose is to bring awareness not only to our school community but bring awareness to the whole community as well and just to show what diversity really is and what we really mean, you know,?” Vaughn said. “It is not just about race; it can be about gender, or sexuality, just to show we do different things and we are in charge of red ribbon week and stuff like that so we even cover drug awareness just so people are aware of what we are doing and that diversity is a word that can mean many different things.”

As red ribbon week is taking place, Vaughn reflects on an event the club recently partook in: tweeting for change. Diversity club hosted this event in hopes of giving students a voice, and to hear their thoughts on how external factors affect them, giving the club and the community a better understanding of what is truly affecting students.

“[Tweeting for change] went pretty well. A lot of the people who participated are in the club and we had a few alumni come back and participate as well. It was just pretty much a few questions about how you fit into FHC and do you feel like you belong at FHC why or why not? How do you feel that your socioeconomic status impacts your life,” Vaughn said.

Club Sponsor Mrs. Ashley Eiswirth agrees that a goal of the club is to give students a place to express their thoughts and feelings, and takes great pride in being able to go from even from even in order to do so.

“Being part of Diversity club allows me to help people find their voice and place within FHC. This is important to me because I had a teacher help me find my voice and place when I was in high school. I feel like it is my ‘job’ to give back what was given to me,” Eiswirth said.

An important aspect to the diversity club is understanding and patience, Eiswirth explains, as sometimes the club may not get as much participation or response as anticipated, but it does not discourage their efforts to change their community, as they know it is all a process.

“We were hoping that other FHC students would participate in the process as well but we are not disheartened that we did not get a lot of participation. The main goal was to provide a structured and safe place for diversity club members to share their feelings about belonging. Diversity club members wanted their schoolmates to hear their voices regarding those issues,” Eiswirth said. “We understand that change takes time and patience and we aren’t going to give up just because we didn’t get a lot of outside participation.”

Continuing the passion and willingness to better their school and community, diversity club hosts Red Ribbon Week, in hopes of emphasizing the impact drugs have on the community, and things we can do to minimize this negative impact.

“I think the purpose is to promote awareness about drug use and how it really impacts our community, we are one of the leading counties in heroin use in the country,” Vaughn said. “When you know people who have been to rehab who are still in high school, people who need to get help, I guess it kind of brings a fun way to show like ‘hey this is something that we don’t need to be doing, something that is very much impacting our community’.”

This week Red Ribbon week is taking place, implementing spirit days: pajama day, red day, crazy sock day, plaid day in hopes of raising drug awareness. In addition to the themed days, the club also has other activities in place in order to get students involved.

“Yes [red ribbon week] is the week of the 23…we have posters hanging up, and have different days that we plan out for certain things throughout the week, we have activities planned for lunch: one day we are going to play twister during lunch and one day we are going to have a guest speaker one day we are going to sign pledge cards, and give out dum dums, just different things for people to get involved,” Vaughn said.