As one of the most anticipated holidays, Valentine’s Day, approached us, the spirit of spreading love filled the whole PPCHS campus. Many emotions filled the air while excitement and anticipation buzzed across all the students. Valentine’s Day is a day full of love where you spend and cherish time with your friends, family, significant others, and most importantly yourself. A few clubs at Charter have added their own twist to Valentine’s Day by doing something fun and entertaining that all students can participate in with their friends or special ‘Valentines’.

To start, Charter’s own Promote Her Period club (PHP) hosted a Valentine’s Day party that they took as an opportunity to talk about self-love. As students walked into the room, they were given a piece of paper, on which they wrote their names for a raffle, and then were collected into a red cup for the winner to be chosen at the end of the event. After all the papers were collected it was time to hand out pizza and lemonade so that all the students could enjoy and eat while paying attention to the presentation given by President Anaya Andre about love.

 This presentation was extremely important because it taught students how to love and take care of themselves as much as they can, and how to take care of others. Sophomore Kaitlyn Oramas shares, “The meeting taught me a lot about self-love. It taught me different ways to love and take care of myself in ways I haven’t thought of before. It taught me that the little things you do to yourself will impact you greatly on your journey to loving yourself and the writing of positive messages  helped me look at love through different perspectives.”

Many students like Kaitlyn were truly impacted by this meeting because it taught them new ways of how to practice love and how it can positively affect oneself. The PHP club helped many students by teaching them such an important lesson while doing it in a warm safe environment where none of them felt uncomfortable.

Near the end of the party, they played a YouTube video of how to make heart origami, which could be for yourself or someone else. The students followed that video and then wrote something positive on the back of it. “ My favorite part of the meeting was making origami hearts with my friends and seeing how pretty the hearts turned out,” exclaims sophomore Madison Jules.  The heart origami was a memorable activity that a lot of students loved because it helped them think about some of the things they love about themselves, as they were thinking of what to write. After all the talk about love, it was time for the raffle. Co-Vice President Fiona Findley made her way to the red cup and picked the winning raffle, which senior Dylan Escandell won.

Another way that Charter celebrates the upcoming Valentine’s Day is by doing a Match-o-Matics, which the class of 2026 hosted this year. The Match-o-Matics is a survey that students fill out that asks questions like “What’s your favorite color? What is your favorite sport? What is your favorite movie genre?” These questions help decide who you are compatible with in a friendship or relationship while also showing which students are the opposite of you. Many students believe that there should be more in-depth questions because then you can truly see how compatible you are with that person. 

Sophomore Sebastian Lassegue comments, “The survey was good, but good indicators for compatibility were a bit lacking, unfortunately. It could be improved by asking more personal questions about what the person looked for in a relationship and the person that would be in it, but I also think it’s a cute concept, very Netflix rom-com.” 

With that being said, Match-o-Matics is a fun way to build school spirit and learn more about the people in Charter because when you find out your results and see all the different people you matched with, it grants you the opportunity to reach out to them. “The Match-o-Matics, I feel like, is a fun event for someone to look forward to and see who you do and don’t partner with within your school and it’s a way to make Valentine’s Day more fun to me,” expresses sophomore Makenna Angeletos. 

Many students have mixed feelings about this concept but some think it’s an enjoyable way to see who they have things in common with and who they contrast with. On the other hand, this fundraiser allows you to see if the people you get matched with are accurate and also brings a new perspective of someone in your head which just makes it even more exciting! Overall, it allows for a very eye-opening experience for the students at Charter. 

Charter gives the opportunities for Valentine’s Day to be even more lively than ever by having these club events and parties that all students can participate in and come together in. Not only does this raise our self-love and love for others, but raises our school spirit and ability to become closer.