According to Senate sponsor Michelle Foutz, the week of March 14 is Cafeteria Staff Appreciation Week. Foutz said that Cafeteria Staff Appreciation Week is celebrated throughout the Carmel Clay school district, and senators at CHS honor the cafeteria staff in multiple ways.

“We put up signs, we’ve been making announcements this week and we had breakfast for all of the cafeteria staff,” Foutz said.

In addition, Foutz said senators are preparing for March Madness, Brain Game and the spring blood drive.

Senior senator Neil Shah also said the spring blood drive, scheduled for April 21, is one of senate’s main focuses at this time. Shah said senators plan to begin helping students sign up for the blood drive on March 18 during all lunches. Shah also said that bone marrow cheek swabs (http://www.swabacheek.org/ Faqs.aspx ) will be a new component of the blood drive this spring. According to Shah, these cheek swabs will be used to determine matches in individuals who are able to transplant bone marrow. Shah said the introduction of cheek swabs is in part due to junior Matt Cooper, who is in need of a bone marrow transplant.

“It is kind of for Matt Cooper, but it’s going to be a big thing. If we can find matches, that would be really, really beneficial to a lot of people. We’re hoping that we can find people that have matches who will ultimately go and donate bone marrow, and that is truly saving lives because these are people that are waiting for bone marrow transplants, and it’s hard to find a match,” Shah said. “It’s just increasing the potential pool of people.”