On Dec. 17, Students Organized Against Racism (SOAR) held their first-ever printing event along with a potluck. The event featured posters, shirts and small cards with personal rights on them in multiple languages. Many community members at Park gathered together to enjoy the night while showing their support.
According to SOAR’s club advisor, Charlie Mahaffey, the new club logo was one that was specifically picked and designed by the members of SOAR. He said the new logo shows a collective effort to work against racism that immigrants face, especially as it continues to impact our community.
“The (SOAR) new logo came about because we wanted students to be excited about something in SOAR and create something, so we had students present new logos, and then we voted on it, and that’s the one (logo design) that was picked (by other members of SOAR),” Mahaffey said. “Students leaned towards this one because it’s a really powerful logo. It features the Black Power fists, and there are a number of them in the logo. Students have been thinking a lot about other types of racism and other aspects of identity in our community. They’ve been thinking a lot about immigration specifically, and I think that this logo sort of represents a collective struggle of a lot of people coming together around an anti-racist mission. That is hinted at in the logo, so I think it’s a perfect logo for the year.”
Senior Aurora Pascual said the new logo was brought on as an effort to reflect more of a community aspect. They said a new logo can help build connections within the Park community as well.
“We decided to do a new logo because SOAR shifts with the time(s),” Pascual said. “We thought the logo should reflect that, and it connects to our goals this year because our goal is to build the community and work with the community on issues that really affect them. Having a new logo and a new event to promote was a good way to connect with parents and community members who want to know what SOAR is doing.”
According to freshman Jackson Thoen, the screenprinting event will help fund other similar future events that SOAR has planned or help support new ones. He said the main goal of the screen printing and potluck was also to inform and bring in people of many demographics.
“This event will help with (raising money towards SOAR) so we can do another screenprinting event or something similar,” Thoen said. “It’s bringing the community together by everyone being here, sharing food, having a good time and just talking. The main goal is spreading awareness (on basic rights). This event helped that goal by having everyone contribute.”
Mahaffey said the original idea for the event was just going to be a potluck; however, with the new logo, a printing event also made sense. He said the potluck was meant to bring together the community, and that reflected what SOAR’s new logo represents.
“The main goal of the event, when I was originally thinking about it, wasn’t even going to be a screen printing event,” Mahaffey said. “It was just going to be a potluck with families. The screen printing aspect of it came about when we started talking about a new logo, but then it just made sense. SOAR has not done an event in the last two years that is specifically for family members and students in SOAR, so we wanted to do an event that pulled in families. A lot of times, students are standing up for things, but maybe not feeling super connected to their support network when it comes to these issues, and this was an easy way to connect with those people. The goal was to bring community members together and center the event around art. A lot of what SOAR has done has been about conversations or teach-ins or protests and things like that. We wanted to do something that’s pretty strictly a celebration, and I think we accomplished that.”
Pascual said SOAR is making efforts to help people who currently feel endangered by the increasing anti-immigrant narrative. According to her, SOAR is working to ideally make school feel like a safe space.
“Especially with the rise of anti-immigration rhetoric, SOAR is really trying to support the people who feel threatened by that or who feel unsafe coming to school,” Pascual said. “What we aim to do is get resources on your rights and how you can stay safe out to students so that they at least know what their constitutional rights are and can hopefully feel safer coming to school.”
Thoen said one way students and community members can support SOAR is by attending the events they hold. He said participation in their events by attending and donating helps spread SOAR’s message and reach more people.
“Students can get active with the club by going to events that we have, donating money also helps or talking about SOAR, even just with your friends would also help,” Thoen said. “We hope more people join and come participate in events. It really helps spread SOAR’s goal throughout the community.”
