Equity and Social Justice

As the school year begins, more students are creating new clubs at Suncoast that they feel will fit well into the school. For Chloe Roy, Robert Smith and Bryson King, they wanted to bring in a club that would raise awareness on discriminatory issues as well as act on it, so they created the Equity and Social Justice Club. Equity and Social Justice club strives to bring inclusivity into the school environment all while highlighting issues such as racism, sexism and homophobia.

In the meetings, they focused on introducing everyone to the club and telling them what it is all about. On Monday, September 20, the club held an election where they picked all of the officers and researchers. Roy said, “Our meetings have gone great! The number of participants has doubled since we started, and we are very happy with how the club is shaping to be. Now that we’ve got everyone organized, we can finally start discussing topics.”

Roy’s main goal right now is to get all of the officers situated and comfortable, and to allow all of the members to get to know each other so they can create a safe space for discussion, and to promote their club so they can gain more members.

Before the club could even start their meetings, they had to go through a very meticulous process of creating and bringing the club to life. Roy said, “The process of starting this club was a bit tedious- we asked a lot of teachers to sponsor us. We are very grateful for Mrs. Hamilton for squeezing us in amongst her other clubs. But overall it was an interesting experience- seeing how much work actually goes into creating a club as well as the steps to do so.”

When creating this club, they noticed that Suncoast did not have any clubs that focused solely on discriminatory issues. Roy was shocked because she knew a lot of people who are passionate about all of the topics that their club focuses on. However, many people were not presented with the opportunity to make a change.

Roy said, “Robert, Bryson, and I felt that we needed to make out voices, along with everyone here at Suncoast.”

Roy does have a plan to extend their club outside of school to potentially collaborate with other schools such as Dreyfoos. Roy said, “They seem pretty interested in starting an ESJC over there, which is very exciting.” Once they get organized with their plan, they hope to create an agenda so that both schools can keep up and discuss the same topics at the same time.

As for this quarter, the club plans on working with other organizations. Smith said, “we hope to work with food banks as an act of service for our club. This will also be a good way for our juniors and sophomores to get CAS and VCS hours.”

Considering this is the first year that Equity and Social Justice club has been at Suncoast, the continue to find projects and activities that will help them achieve their goals.