Friday Night Live (FNL) received a sponsorship from Santa Clara Behavioral Health Services, providing the club with guidance, funding, and opportunities to become involved with the community, FNL President Lynn Nguyen said in a Zoom interview.
The club’s purpose is to promote anti-alcohol and anti-drug usage among young people, along with alternatives to them, Nguyen said. Friday Night Live emphasizes avoiding peer pressure and knowing the dangers of drugs and alcohol, which can take a large toll on your physical health, mental health, and social life, she added.
The club members coordinate multiple projects to promote their message. “We’re doing a CDE [California Department of Education] project with the city grant,” Nguyen said. “We decided to do it on vaping. Essentially, it requires us to do three ‘take action’ projects. One of them is the student pledge, and the other is getting involved with the PTSA and asking them to vote yes on the flavor ban on the California ballot. And, the third one is releasing our PSAs and making them more accessible to everyone in the community.”
Nguyen added that the funds from the sponsorship help the officers provide incentives to the members. For example, they plan to raffle off a gift card for participating in the student pledge—students would need to post a pledge to avoid vaping and tobacco products on a Jamboard that the officers created, according to the club Instagram account (@milpitashigh.fnl). The funds are also used for the materials required in their projects, such as the park cleanup, Nguyen said. The grant money allowed the officers to buy gloves, trash pickers, and raffle bags, she said.
In a Zoom interview, FNL Vice President Michelle Ngo elaborated on the park cleanup project. “Towards the beginning of the school year, we made a podcast of our park cleanup near Great Mall,” she said. “We were talking about our observations of the products littered on the ground, like tobacco products, and how they were improperly discarded.”
Another notable Friday Night Live project is the video PSAs, which FNL created this year as part of the overarching initiative with the CDE. The PSAs featured five club members, Ngo said. The intention is to not demonize those who have used vapes and other substances during the pandemic; rather, the officers want to encourage them to find alternatives, she added. Through sharing stories from actual students, the officers can build a connection with the student community, Ngo said.
Although it’s difficult to coordinate events and community service projects this year, the club officers have worked harder to keep members engaged. “For every check-in question, we have people comment in the chat what they believe or do an annotation on the whiteboard,” Nguyen said. “Sometimes we play a game, like Scribble, just to get them engaged. It’s not all ‘talk and do.’ We also try to have some relaxing moments to get to know each other better.”
Outside of meetings, members keep in touch through the club Discord server, Ngo said. The server creates an informal, welcoming environment with its memes channel and the frequent social interaction, she added.
“I think our club is fortunate to have such a close, tight-knit community,” FNL Treasurer Katherine Dasalla said in a Zoom interview. “We feel comfortable talking to anyone. And in the Discord server, we talk about anything, from school assignments to the random stuff that’s going on in our lives. It’s the sap for keeping our club together… especially during COVID.”
Nguyen said that she started the club in her freshman year. In the past four years, one of the most memorable accomplishments for her was contributing to a discussion at the City Council of Milpitas, she said. The discussion focused on establishing dispensaries around the city, Nguyen added.
“We went to town hall, spoke in front of the entire city council, and said: ‘Hey, we are students from Milpitas High School, and we don’t like this idea,’” Nguyen said. “We explained our personal experiences as students in a school full of people that could have access [to drugs]. I could abuse that to get cannabis and everything. And they actually listened to us… They agreed with our perspective, and they didn’t follow up with the dispensary idea again.”
Ngo said that since most of the club members are seniors, the officers’ primary goal before they graduate is to recruit more underclassmen, who can continue the club and expand on projects like their podcasts. She is glad that she can graduate knowing that the remaining members are all friends due to the community they’ve fostered, she said.