According to Lifelines sponsor Rebekah Overbey, both Lifelines and the Diversity Focus Group are planning activities throughout February for black history month. These activities include playing movies during SRT and hosting a trivia game during morning video announcements.

“We are showing movies to share certain messages with the students, and the trivia game is to increase awareness of black history month and black history in general,” Overbey said.

Chris Song, vice-president of Diversity Focus Group, also said the trivia game will be during SRT but also that the winner of the game will receive a large bag of candy for their whole SRT class.

Song said, “Classes can start participating by watching for the questions during announcements in their SRTS and by emailing Mr. Schaller at [email protected] the answers. At the end of the month the SRT with the most correct answers will win the prize.”

Along with the trivia game, Overbey said those who planned the activities picked certain movies in order to convey specific messages pertaining to black history month.

“We have already shown video clips of ‘Proud Family’ to start talking about how it was like to live back in that time. We choose ‘Akeelah and the Bee’ to show how a girl fought to change her circumstances, ‘The Blind Side’ to show the walls of racism being torn down to achieve goals, and ‘The Color of Friendship’ to show how people can break down racial barriers that people and cultures have put into place,” she said.

Song said the collaboration between Diversity Focus Group and Lifelines began when Mr. Schaller, sponsor of Diversity Focus Group) and Overbey discussed what they could do during black history month.

Overbey said, “Lifelines has been doing activities dealing with black history month for a long time now. When Diversity Focus Group was made, we thought it was a good fit and just started doing the activities together.”

Overbey also said that she hopes students will learn a message from the activities both groups plan for black history month.

“These activities are really just a way to do something for black history month and increase awareness of black history,” Overbey said. “What we want people to know is that working together is key in tearing down walls and that making a difference in someone else’s life is important.”