Wish Week

Wish Week has been one of the most anticipated weeks on the Mountain View High School calendar since it began many years ago. This event has been a massive source of connection between the community and the school, as well as being a unifying event for the student body in and of itself. During Wish Week, Mountain View sponsors a child from the Make-A-Wish foundation and holds major fundraising events for the student body and community; all proceeds go directly to the sponsored child in hopes that their wish will be granted. Student Council runs the event, decking out the whole school in decorations according to the theme (which is chosen based on the wish kid themselves), and planning activities, assemblies, and the whole works. This year, it was especially important to the Student Council to make sure Wish Week happens because, now more than ever, people need a little light to hold on to. And, luckily for us, that is exactly what we were given on the week of March 1st-5th, 2021.

Maisy Merchant– the Service Representative on Student Council this school year– was thrilled when she received the profile for the wish kid, Bodie. She said, “When I got Bodie’s profile, I felt a great amount of sympathy toward him and his family… I wanted to do what I could to strengthen [them] after they had been through so much hardship.” Bodie is a little five-year-old boy who was diagnosed with cancer in January of 2020, and after a year’s worth of gruelling treatment and radiation, Bodie is now cancer free! His wish, organized by the Make-A-Wish Foundation, was for a cabin-style playhouse. Included below is a copy of the profile that was given to Student Council as they planned this week for Bodie:

Based on the information given, Student Council went right to work, first deciding on the theme: “The Great Outdoors.” They decorated the whole school according to the things that Bodie loves: the main entrance and basic midsection of the school was decorated with things correlating to the outdoors– mountains on the walls, columns made into trees, a tent in the commons, and even the bear costumed into a mountain-man of sorts; the North end of the school was filled with construction signs, tractor cutouts, construction tape, and traffic cones; the South end was decked out with life-size, hand done Marvel superhero figures, streamers with their correlating colors showcasing that particular hero and also connecting them with the ones adjacent to them. Many members of Student Council worked for many, many hours the weekend before Wish Week making sure that the decorations were up to honor Bodie and get the student body excited about fundraising for him. Merchant stated, “Seeing these plans go into action brought me so much joy! Knowing how much work was put into these events made me feel so much appreciation for the student council members of this year and in the past.”

Along with the extensive decorations, Student Council also planned and hosted many fundraising and advertising events throughout the week. Various restaurants sponsored the cause, donating part of their profit to Bodie. They also ran an event called “Dollar Wars,” where students would bring cash and compete against the other classes to see who could bring in the most money, with a promised prize of donuts to be given to the winning class, which ended up being the juniors! Along with all of these things, every day was a dress up day for the students, with different themes for each:
Minecraft/Green Monday
Superhero Tuesday
Class Color Thursday
Seniors: Gold, Juniors: Red, Sophomores: White
Flannel Friday

Thursday was the day of the Wish Week assembly; for the first time ever, the assembly was broadcasted to and run part-time in the hallways by small groups of Student Council members with the students who could not attend in the gym due to social distancing. They did activities such as cup-stacking relays and tug of war that mirrored the ones the people in the gym were doing, getting everybody involved regardless of their location in the school. There were a few activities that could only be performed in the gym, but Student Council still did their best to get the people in the classrooms that were watching the broadcast involved and aware of what was going on. Classes (sophomore, junior, and senior) choreographed dances according to the theme which were broadcasted to the student body during the assembly, and a video of Bodie choosing the juniors as the winners was shown. Also conducted in both venues was an event called Miracle Minute, where all loose cash and change that students had on them and were willing to donate was collected. The assembly, though different from what anybody had anticipated the annual Wish Week assembly to be, was a success.

The final large-scale fundraising activity came in the form of BruinFest, which was held in the school from 12-3 pm on Friday. T-Shirts– pictured below and designed by one of the Design Representatives, Natalia Lopez– were sold as tickets into the event all week long, priced at $7 presale and $10 at the door.

Students had a variety of activities to choose from upon entrance to the event: volleyball, karaoke, Super-Smash Bros, Just Dance, and basketball being among them. There was an activity for everybody, and the student body had a very positive response to the Fest as a whole– attendance was high, and it was an excellent source of revenue for Bodie, especially with the consideration that the usual Black Light Stomp fundraising dance was not allowed to be held due to Covid restrictions.

The grand total from all of these activities is still being added up, but we do know that Mountain View raised at least enough to be able to grant Bodie his wish! Even amid all the chaos of this year, Mountain View is happy to see that there is still so much ability to do good and serve the members of the community, and to be a part of that movement. We love you, Bodie!