SAVE promise club, a Cape High club that has been overshadowed by various others for more than four years, will hopefully be making a large impact on the seahawk community this year.
SAVE is an acronym for Students Against Violence Everywhere and according to the club’s advisor, Michelle WIlliams, is “in connection with [the] Sandy Hook Elementary School that suffered a tragic mass loss from a mass shooting several years ago.” Williams explains it turns out that the “parents [of the students] formed this organization to help educate students on ways to look out for problematic actions that they might see inside of the classroom.” It is a national non profit organization and “our school district provides grant funding for high schools that participate in the program.”
The general school population isn’t able to join the club since SAVE is only available to join if you are a part of the National Honor Society (NHS). “It’s like a subgroup of National Honor Society,” M. Williams states. Even though not everyone can be a part of the club and committee meetings, “we do school wide events.” School wide events will most likely be told to the school through our school newsletter, the Seahawks Scoop, and also in the morning or afternoon announcements.
Their first activity will most likely be in September after everyone has gotten used to the quick paced hallways and settled into most of their classes. It’d be wise to look out for and participate in these events since they aren’t very common as one of the club’s chairmen, Keira Williams says, “We do service projects, and we try to do, like one semester. We really aim for a quarter, but one a semester is a little bit more realistic.” While SAVE won’t be able to do activities that are on as serious a level as the Sandy Hook shooting, they will end up trying to do other activities that will include everyone and “promote peace and inclusivity and caring and looking out for others.” Most of the positive messages that can be found in the cafeteria are due to the members of SAVE which fits into their image of spreading positivity and peace.
SAVE is also recruiting trusted adults for their club. These trusted adults include a roster of teachers, coaches, or any other staff member that works here in the school. “It’s essentially someone who’s willing to be on a list for students, like a person they can go to if they feel like they might, they themselves might be in crisis, or they have witnessed or noticed something about another student, and the teachers already serve in that way,” stated M. Williams. These adults can also be compared to a student’s favorite teacher. “Typically, students have a favorite teacher, somebody that they care for. But this just offers a list of teachers that, you know, some students might not have that favorite teacher. So this just shows them that these are teachers that are open to being there for them if they need something.”
The trusted adults feature is not to be mistaken for replacing our anonymous tip program, Fortify FL Suspicious Activity, and M. Williams wants to reinstate that. “It doesn’t replace, you know, reporting something of, you know, high level importance, but just somebody that student could use as a sounding board to process what they’re going through.”
SAVE is a good club for our community and is bringing in good people. One of those good people being one of the club’s chairman, Esther Saintellion. Saintellion isn’t a chairman simply for the seat of power, “I chose to run for chairman because ever since I started high school, there’s always [been] like this, I know I’m not the only one to talk about this, but there’s always like that feeling that you’re just like, ‘If something happens right now, how am I supposed to get out of this situation?’”
Students shouldn’t have to feel the same as Saintellion does, which is why the SAVE club is here at our school. Their goal to promote peace and non-violence will have an everlasting effect on Cape High.
