Senior parents working together for the year’s biggest party event
Posted on Wednesday, April 16, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/rhtn/News/3828/
For some parents Project Graduation may be seen as the last chance to do something they always meant to do. For others it’s one more volunteer job in a career that’s spanned 12 years. For whatever reason, Project Graduation seems to find the volunteers needed to put on a great party each year.
“ I’m meeting people whose children have gone to school with my child for years. It’s awesome, ” Melanie Alecusan said. She’s one of eight co-chairs for Project Graduation 2008. The eight chairs supervise dozens of other parents. It’s the large volunteer effort that gets the credit for Project Graduation, she said.
Parents have good reason for wanting to throw a party for their graduating seniors. According to information provided by the local group, graduation night is a high- risk night for teenagers.
Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death in people aged 15-20, and deadly crashes involving alcohol are twice as common in teens than people over the age of 21. Statistics also show that many teenagers, up to 29 percent of high school seniors, have engaged in binge drinking.
With the support of parents and dozens of businesses, Rogers seniors have a safe and healthy choice on graduation night. Project graduation has become a tradition.
Last year more than 300 people worked for Project Graduation, Alecusan said.
“ We’re worrying about the whole class’s safety, not just our own child, ” she said. “ And it’s just such a great option to get together one last time just to have fun. ”
When it was all over last year, the chairs held a thank-you cook out for volunteers; parents of this year’s seniors were invited. That was when the Alecusans were recruited along with John and Tammy Goodwin, Monica and Randy Avery, and Guanica and Ed Parrish. The Averys and the Parrishs both have older children so they have done Project Graduation before, Alecusan said.
Each couple supervises about seven committees. Each committee received a notebook handed down from the previous year. The notebooks serve as a how-to guide for each facet of the project. Some committees contact businesses and solicit prizes that will be raffled off during the evening. Others arrange fundraising events including chicken sales and a golf tournament. Others arrange entertainment.
But this year’s chairs had an unpleasant surprise last fall. After the school administration announced graduation was scheduled for May 23, later than it’s been in recent years, Alecusan received a panicked phone call. The Jones Center, the traditional site of Project Graduation, was already booked for May 23.
They considered sharing the facility with the Oklahoma school district that had the reservation, but that didn’t work out, so they started looking for an alternate site. They found a good one on the U of A campus. The HPER (Health, Physical Education and Recreation ) building has many of the amenities available at the Jones Center.
“ They have a huge swimming pool — an Olympic-size pool — with high diving platforms, ” Alecusan said. There is also room for water basketball and volleyball. There’s no skating rink, but there is a climbing wall and racket ball courts.
“ We can use three gyms. The casino will be in one gym, ” she said. Another will probably be used for basketball and volley ball. An inflatable laser tag course may be set up in the third gym.
There are other inflatables, a dance room with a D. J. and traditional favorites like the cash booth and the mechanical bull.
The HPER building doesn’t have a kitchen, so the food committee has been working hard on alternatives. Grills will be set up for hot dogs and hamburgers and area restaurants are donating the ingredients for a pasta bar and a taco bar. Partygoers will have a choice of food at all times, including breakfast foods served in the early morning.
This year Project Graduation will cost the students $ 15, but they’ll receive more than $ 15 worth of gifts in their goody bag, Alecusan said, plus they have the chance to win large prizes. In the past, Project Graduation has raffled off televisions, stereos and microwave ovens, as well as things needed as students move on to new lives: lamps, desk chairs and laptop computers.
Although Project Graduation will take place close to the actual graduation exercises on the U of A campus, the committee agreed that students who attend must ride the school bus from Rogers High School.
“ The reason we do that is Project Graduation is meant to be a safe night, ” she explained. “ We don’t want kids to have cars on the campus. ”
They’ll leave their cars at Rogers High School; the bus will return them to the school in the morning. Once inside the HPER building, they won’t be allowed to leave. Only Rogers High School graduating seniors will be allowed in the building for Project Graduation. Boyfriends, girlfriends and siblings who are not graduating will not be welcome. Parents can attend only if they’re working with Project Graduation.
Each year, parents of juniors are asked to help set up while senior parents attend graduation ceremonies, Alecusan said. Some of those parents take over leadership for the next year.
In 2009, when Heritage High School is open, all the district’s seniors will attend Rogers High School. May 2010 will be the first year that Heritage will have its own graduating class. Alecusan will have a senior that year, too. It’s too early to make decisions about Project Graduation 2010, she said, but she’d like to see the two high schools celebrate together. After all, she said, the class of 2010 is now together at the sophomore campus.