Cleveland’s 2016 annual club fair did not disappoint with more than 40 clubs that put their organizations on display to recruit as many new members as possible. As soon as the flex bell rang Nov. 17, a swarm of students crowded the cafeteria to get involved with what Cleveland has to offer.

Not only was the club fair successful with the amount of people who were eager to attend, sophomore leadership was also satisfied with the event as a whole. The sophomore class spent the last few weeks organizing the fair that had a whole cafeteria’s worth of clubs to display. They planned the layout, the publicity, and the decorations for the event. Leadership even created maps to easily guide students to the clubs they would be interested in.

“This year I really wanted to emphasize which clubs were which,” sophomore Tiffany Vo explained. “They [leadership] hand-painted all of the signs that you see out there right now, and I think that we all did such a great job,” Vo explained.

The clubs were organized into different genres, such as activism, art, education, and more, and students really felt this was a successful way to gain attention to specific clubs. Every club presented their message and ideas and many students were more than happy to sign up. Junior Lily Gilmore created the Gender Empowerment Club, and is excited for the new members to come and experience their club. “There seemed to be a lot of really motivated and aware people that were very excited about the idea of the club,” she said.

Youth Ending Slavery also felt like the fair was a way for people to get to know them. “I think it did a pretty well, I mean there was no way near as many people who showed up who actually wrote their names down with my sign up sheet, but there were a lot of new members who wouldn’t have necessarily heard about it otherwise, and that was really exciting,” YES club leader and sophomore Gwen Kaliszewski believed. “I think it did a really good job, because people who actually want to be there but just don’t know about it, that’s the people you get, and I think that’s a really exciting opportunity for us, and I think that it was successful in that.”

With the exceptional turnout of new clubs this year, students felt like there was more to offer. “We had like 50 clubs this year, so I think that made it more open to everyone,” sophomore Audrey Olenski described. “There was definitely something for everyone.”

The fair accomplished the main goal of gathering more students for clubs, but as always, there were bumps along the way. There was little time to actually set up and put the clubs on display before the students arrived, as only 45 minutes before the fair was allotted to the students who volunteered for setup, and with the amount of clubs that showed, time was crucial. However, leadership knows how to turn a situation around and make it a success. As sophomore co-class president Kaliszewski explained, “I know there were some issues with the setup in the beginning, but everything got set up in the end, and everything got organized.”

Overall, the 2016 club fair was a big accomplishment for not only leadership, but for the clubs involved as well. The cafeteria was jam-packed with students enthusiastic to get involved in our school, and was an opportunity for Cleveland to show our student involvement.