On the breezy afternoon of January 22nd, Club Rush was held at the same time as the Picnic on the Lawn as part of the Spring semester Welcome Week activities. From 11:30am to 2pm, students were invited to join Student Leadership for a free lunch to learn more about our clubs and how to get one started. The lunch consisted of hot dogs, chips and soda.

In regards to the event, Devin Thornock stated, “It’s been great to see how many students are interested in our extracurricular activities!”

Thornock’s enthusiasm was a shared feeling throughout the event. Waves of students were throwing out their ideas for clubs. Some ideas included the additions of a Sports Club, Nerd Club, Food Club, and DECA represented on campus.

Thanks to Club Rush, one club that is already in the process of becoming official is the Veteran’s Club. Brian Lauterbach’s initiative with the service-based club is inspiring. He wants to use this club as a means of volunteering the group’s services to veterans in need of some assistance. This assistance will be spread throughout the Maricopa campus as well as the community, as both the campus and community have a strong veteran presence.

Lauterbach has enlisted his daughter, Gretchen Lauterbach, to help with the club but she has also shown interest in getting DECA up and running. Expanding on her ideas, she said, “I was the Vice President of DECA in high school and would love to see it represented here on campus.”

Central Arizona College’s Maricopa campus is brand new in comparison to Signal Peak. Having only been fully functioning for two years, getting clubs established has been a challenge. The campus currently houses two clubs, the two being the Student Leadership Organization and Phi Theta Kappa.

This is because having the ideas for clubs is easy, but getting them up and running is more difficult, as one student reveals, “I would like to see a Food Club! One where you just cook food and share it with each other.” When asked if he would like to take on bringing this idea to fruition, he stated, “Well, I would be a part of the club if it did exist.”

It is disheartening to hear that students want these things, but choose not to do anything to get them established. As the Maricopa campus further develops, more students will want to be a part of a new club and do whatever they can to make it a reality. However, like anything, it just takes time.

Now it is in the hands of the students to get involved!} else {