Over the years, students have come up with tons of new ideas for clubs and activities that cover a good portion of peoples’ interests and hobbies in the school. This year specifically, creative students have been able to establish clubs such as the the StarCraft Club, the Gardening Club, and even the Friendship Bracelet Club. Each of these new organizations hit the different interests and favored pastimes of the community within the school.

Sophomore Michael Johns and his buddies were able to get the StarCraft Club up and running. StarCraft is a real-time military strategy game in which players build bases and incorporate their own tactics in order to defeat opponents. The team at Oakton competes with other schools and has even taken fourth and fifth place at professional tournaments.
“All of us together just wanted to make a place where we could just play games and to be able to compete on an official level,” said Johns.

The club sponsored by Mrs. Smith currently has 36 members and has successfully been able to defeat all but one of their opponents and has claimed the title as the second best team on the East Coast. In the coming weeks, the club is heading to the StarCraft nationals and hopes to remain on good tracks.

Another new addition to the long list of clubs offered, the Gardening Club stands out among the others, as an original and fun club that supports a good cause. President and founder of the Gardening Club junior Jessica Miller has had the idea since her freshman year.

“In ninth grade I was kind of like wow, our school should have a garden,” said Miller. “But I was young and shy and I thought we would have one if we could. Then this year I brought up the idea as an advisory capstone project and my advisory teacher Ms. Sesock totally had my back.”

However, getting the club started proved to be a bigger challenge than Miller originally thought.

“In the beginning of the year it seemed crazy simple,” Miller said. “But when it came time to actually start, administration was no longer on board with my plan to dig in their courtyards or to even start a garden. I had to go back multiple times, and I even spent three hours making a proposal PowerPoint that explained that yes, there are gardens in FCPS, 32 to be exact, and that there are ways to protect against animals.”

All of Miller’s hard work eventually paid off, and she was able to get the club started and get the land she needed.

“We were finally granted some land somewhere near the football field, but it’s hard to describe exactly where,” Miller said.

The purpose behind the club is for students involved to grow a garden at the school and donate the food grown.

“Our mission is to work together to create a vegetable garden that will provide fresh food to Food for Others, a local food bank,” Miller said.

Miller not only plans to keep the Garden Club going throughout the rest of the year and the summer, but even after she graduates in 2015.

“I hope the club lasts and that future leaders keep the service in mind,” Miller said. “In all honesty, I just want to be able to leave Oakton next year knowing that the garden club is up and running and that it has a good number of people to maintain it.”

Freshman Elizabeth Malone created another new club this year, the Friendship Bracelet Club, which, as its name implies, is focused on making friendship bracelets.

“The whole point of the club is that we make bracelets for a program that takes homemade items to an orphanage in Honduras,” said Malone. “Our goal is to have enough bracelets to send on that trip by the end of the year.”

As the president of the club, Malone is already looking ahead to what will happen to the club after they send their bracelets to Honduras.

“I would like to find another charity that would take us,” Malone said. “I also want the club to just keep growing.”

If interested in joining the Friendship Bracelet Club, becoming a member is pretty straightforward.

“Our [club’s] constitution says is that if you come to two meetings you’re a member, so we have a lot of members,” Malone said.

Meetings typically consist of making friendship bracelets, eating food, and having a good time.