New rules affect Club Day
One day a year, clubs throughout the school gather in the quad to promote their club, recruit new members, and raise funds. In the past, many clubs took this time on “Club Day” to sell food to fellow students. This year, newly imposed rules restricted their ability to do so.
Recently, the state made more changes in regulation of how schools and student groups sell food on campus. Not only is there a new set of health guidelines, but clubs or students wanting to sell food must fill out an approval form before selling anything.
“Basically, it’s stating that they can’t have fattening foods,” Carly Adams, Dean of Activities, said about the new rules. All food sold on campus between midnight and an hour and a half after school must meet the standards for a nutritional snack, entree, or beverage.
Snacks must have less than 35% calories from fat, less than 200 calories per item, and must be either a fruit, vegetable, dairy, protein, or whole grain. The rules for an entree are similar, with a maximum of 400 calories per item. In addition, only one student group is allowed to sell food each day, except for 4 designated days each year.
Because of these rules, many clubs had to change their plans for Club Day. Instead of selling food to raise money, clubs focused on spreading awareness and getting more people interested in their club.
“They want us to think outside the box and get a little more creative,” Adams said.
That is exactly what the Anime club did. Freshmen Amy Chen, publicist for the club, said that their focus on Club Day was to “get our club heard.” This year, the club decided to make and sell keychains to draw peoples’ attention and raise money.
However, many clubs worked around these restrictions to continue selling food. “We found a healthy frozen yogurt recipe on the internet … and we’re using fruit toppings,” Sarah Yap, junior, a member of the World Languages Club said.
Pancake Pow Wow also made changes in their menu in order to sell their pancakes.
“We can’t serve syrup,” said Iain Filkins, senior, but added that it didn’t affect their sales much.
Many clubs were able to raise money and interest in their clubs. “It’s great, except for the fact that we can’t sell a lot of food,” Chen said.
