By: Mitchell Lai ’18
The Bellarmine campus was alive with music, food trucks, and inflatable structures on the evening of Friday August 25th, 2017 as the annual Party in the Quad wrapped up the first week of classes.
Freshmen took this opportunity to spend time with their new classmates at the end of their first week in high school. This event is intended to provide a space for freshmen to broaden their social groups to include other Bells and students from Presentation, Notre Dame, Archbishop Mitty, Saint Francis, and other high schools throughout the Bay Area.
“It’s great how people are just here, and it’s a great opportunity to meet new people,” said Drake Dueck ‘21.
“It’s just a good place to just hang out,” said Sahil Ahuja ‘18, member of ASB. “It’s a good time for the freshmen to come out and start to meet their friends and get out-of-school experience with guys they’re going to school with for the next four years.”
A zip line towered high above the event as students glided from one side of the quad to the other.
“It actually looks pretty cool because it’s pretty high up” said Nathan Aviles ’21. “You don’t get to go on zip lines very often.”
Off to the side, a volleyball net separated two groups an oversized volleyball match.
A Wipeout-inspired structure, with large, red, inflatable spheres, sat at the edge of the quad, waiting for challengers to conquer the obstacle.
“I jumped on one of the balls, and I just bounced off,” said Nathan Ernani ’21. “It’s kind of scary – but fun.”
Students competed in a competitive four-way dodgeball match inside an inflatable rink.
Every hour, a raffle prize, from a Starbucks gift card to a Bellarmine t-shirt, was given to one lucky winner. At 6:00 pm, freshman Andrew Martinez won an ITunes gift card.
“It’s pretty cool, but I’m usually pretty lucky on these things,” said Martinez. “At the freshman orientation, I actually won a t-shirt.”
Many took the opportunity to explore to the social scene at Bellarmine and de-stress from the newfound academic rigor and extracurricular commitments.
“Academically, [Bellarmine] is pretty challenging, a little more challenging than I had hoped, but fitting into a friend group isn’t that hard here,” said Daniel Vaca ’21.
“I’ve actually been here for three weeks now because I’m on the football team,” said Martinez.
ASB has been planning Party in the Quad since final exams ended last school year, and they bore the fruits of their efforts last Friday.
“It took a lot of commitment and a lot of phone calls,” said Ahuja. “We had to call a lot of people to get the zip line booked, the food trucks here, the Wipeout – everything like that.”
Even so, the hours leading up to the event were hectic as ASB rushed to put the finishing touches.
“Normally, we have an extra week to do this. Within the last few days, we’ve been finalizing a lot of things,” said Ahuja. “One of our core guys weren’t here, so we had to adjust to that. We had trouble with the speaker system to start, but by 4:05, we had everything together, ready to go.”
“I think we could have advertise a little better, but overall, it turned out pretty well,” said ASB member Aaron Fernandez ’20.
Party in the Quad gave students a glimmer into the brotherhood of inclusion that the school prides itself in upholding.
“I like Bellarmine as a community because everyone is a brother, and they accept people for who they are,” said Adam Aviles ’21. “You can make a lot of friends here.”