While sitting in a circle among other members of the group at the first meeting, senior Pamela Juarez introduces herself and shares why she decided to join the Student Organization Against Racism (SOAR) club.

“From what it looks like, there’s a lot of new people that joined this year, so I think it’ll be a big group, and I think we have a lot of things to talk about,” Juarez said.

Juarez said the first meeting went well and the group discussed important issues they want to cover throughout the year.

“What I think went well is that we briefly touched on things that we can talk about, such as things like uneven race in high level classes,” Juarez said.

Unfortunately the advisor of the club, Arika Mareck, wasn’t able to show up to the first meeting. However director of students Lauren Buxton took her place. She said she enjoyed observing students meeting one another and discussing race.

“Racial issues can be hard to talk about, so I think getting to know each other a little bit first is a nice way to start the group,” Buxton said.

Buxton said the leaders of the group did a great job welcoming the students to the SOAR meeting.

“They did share a little bit of the history of you know how the group started too, so that was helpful to hear,” Buxton said.

Junior Callia Blake said she looks forward to helping senior Cedar Thomas lead the club this year because she actively participated since the club began last year.

“I was going to (the meetings) for a long time. So, it’s just something that I really care about and is important to me,” Blake said.

A big issue the SOAR club discussed was the low diversity within the group, according to Juarez.

“A lot of the people in the group are white, and I know that we talked about how we want it to be more of a diverse group, since it is a group that talks about how to fix racism in school,” Juarez said.

Buxton said she loves that this club exists because some of the teachers’ work related to the discussion occurring during the meetings.

“What some students might not know is that teachers attend a lot of workshops and it’s a lot of our professional development to look at racial equity issues here at school and how it impacts students of color,” Buxton said. “So to see students be involved is very exciting.”

Blake said she hopes SOAR influences Park positively and accomplishes their goals.

“I just know that I really wanna be a group that’s causing change, or at least making people think before they do or say things,” Blake said.

SOAR’s next meeting takes place 8:10 a.m. Sept. 22 in C350.