From Thursday, Feb. 12, to Friday, Feb. 13, the annual Valentine’s Day celebrations took place at UPrep. Though typically a one-day Community Time event, this year took an expanded twist: a two-day-long singing telegrams.
A group of about 10 students dropped into classrooms throughout the two days to sing to a special person. After singing along to a backtrack blasting from a speaker and dancing, the group concluded their performances by giving the special person a Hershey’s Kiss, a red rose, or both. Senior Huda Hassan took a few shifts on Friday.
“I helped generate the idea along with other people,” Hassan said. “We saw social media, and thought that it would be a fun idea for everybody to do.”
Hassan described this Valentine’s Day as “incredible”, and thought it brought together students from all grade levels.
“We want to intrude into spaces, younger grade spaces, to help integrate people across grades more,” Hassan said. “I feel like that was a chance for exposure, getting to know someone, and singing to them. I feel like that’s a beautiful thing.”
On Friday, alongside many lively rounds of the game Just Dance in the ULab, tables were filled with candy grams, a UPrep Valentine’s Day staple. Candy grams have gone on for many years, according to Assistant Director of Upper School and ASB overseer Meg Anderson-Johnston. Junior Evie Pagulayan, one of four ASB executives, wanted to make Valentine’s Day “as fun as possible.”
“A big goal of us, as the ASB collective, this year was bringing up the Puma pride, bringing up the spirit, making school more of a fun place,” Pagulayan said. “We were able to order some new games, like pin the heart. We got Just Dance. We made sure everyone has a candy gram. We got a bunch of candy, just really went all out because we wanted everyone to feel the love. That’s what Valentine’s Day is about.”
Assistant Director of Middle School Tim Blok led a game of bingo in a ULab classroom, which attracted over 20 students. This was junior Jordan Gruhl’s first time doing Valentine’s Day bingo.
“It’s fun to win, ” Gruhl said.
Gruhl rated all Valentine’s Day festivities an eight out of ten.
“I did the Just Dance, wrote a few candy grams, and I was in a class where we got two singing telegrams,” Gruhl said.
Junior Cormac Chandler participated in a very competitive cake decorating contest along with four teammates and against three other teams. There were four teams split by upper school grade levels.
“Though our grade placed third, we deserved first, and in our hearts, we won first,” Chandler said.
Despite the loss, Chandler rated the Valentine’s Day festivities a nine out of ten.
“I feel like the spirit around it this year was so much better,” Chandler said. “Magnificent is the word I would use. I had so much fun.”
