Spooky Game Night was hosted at the Innovation Campus on Oct. 24, offering students and families a wide variety of activities. Attractions at the event included an outdoor karaoke section, a Halloween-themed photobooth, and video games like Super Smash Bros Ultimate and Gran Turismo in the community room. Admission was free, but food and merchandise were sold in order to raise money for an upcoming trip to Japan.
The event was first proposed after the success of a similar event last year, junior Addison Tuet said. The popularity of the community room, where students often hang out, also added to the creation of the event, Tuet added.
“I had the idea last year when we did April’s Community Game Night event,” Tuet said, “And for that event, I had the idea because the community room is such a big part of our campus. The community room is basically a game room that students advocated for, where it started off as a passion project, that people wanted to have video games in a room where people could study and work together after school, and now it functions as tutoring and playing video games during lunch, and it also hosts community events.”
The presence of activities such as games resulted in many community members from all over the district visiting the Innovation Campus for the event, Tuet said.
“It’s definitely very rewarding to see a lot of community members from elementaries, from middle schools, come here and experience what Innovation has to offer with our board games out, and our merch shop, and then we also have a game room, which again is a really big part of school here, because it feels like a normal tour,” Tuet said.
The event also included places where attendees could buy food. The locations included the campus’s kitchen which served cooked meals, such as rice bowls, and a booth near the community room that served packaged snacks.
Junior Mark Wong, who was also a student volunteer for concessions, talked about the amount of financial progress made towards reaching the goal of hosting a trip to Japan.
“Although I am not going on this trip, we have hosted similar events and fundraisers to attempt to raise money for this trip,” Wong said. “Overall, it’s been going a little rough, but we’ve been getting there, and we’re getting closer and closer every day.”
Spanish teacher Mauricio Arambula, who was in charge of the photobooth, also confirmed that funds raised from the event will go towards the trip. In the meantime, the Innovation Campus is open for all members of the community, Arambula added.
“Our students are working very hard to get some funds to be able to go to Japan,” Arambula said. “We invite the community to come and see our beautiful campus. We are here to serve (the) Milpitas community.”
Tuet hopes that similar events in the future will continue to give people an opportunity to see student life at the Innovation Campus, she said.
“The next community game night event is definitely open to them (MUSD community members) because if they’d like to see what it’s like here at Innovation Campus, it gives you a taste of how it feels to go to school here, but then also, the community we’re building, and we really want to be more open and a bit more advertised to the world, because we are extremely new,” Tuet said. “We’ve only been here for two years, so we really want to show the world what we got, how we’re still building.”
