Courtesy of Sarah Musani

The PJ Movie Night allowed sophomores to come to the Student Center for a movie and food, all with free admission.

Throughout the school year, the sophomore class office has constantly been on the lookout for areas to improve in. In late January, officers sent out a form for sophomores to provide feedback; the results were requests for more class activities.

All class officers — president Edwin Wu, vice president Sarah Musani, treasurer Chloe Zeng and class representatives Mira Jishnu and Clarisse Yeung — discussed and pitched ideas, finally deciding on a sophomores-only movie night. They worked with class advisors Jennifer Lee and Lisa Cochrum to host a PJ Movie Night in the Student Center.

“We thought of this idea in class because we wanted to have a class social, and we talked about it with our student advisors, [Jennifer] Lee and [Lisa] Cochrum, and they provided us with a lot of help,” Zeng said.

The officers put out Instagram polls to determine what food and movie their peers wanted and to tailor the event towards the entire sophomore class.  The poll responses for the movie favored a comedy, so “Crazy Rich Asians” was chosen.

Connor Chiang was inspired to join the event after seeing one of the polls on social media, and offered to donate nine pizzas to the movie night. After Chiang’s offer, the amount of Taco Bell was adjusted accordingly, and the final logistics for budgeting, items and costs were determined over break.

On Feb. 23, from 6-8 p.m., around 40 sophomores gathered in the Student Center for the event. The food at the movie night consisted of tacos, pizza, cookies and a Shirley Temple bar with maraschino cherries, grenadine syrup and Sprite.

The main aim of the event was to create an opportunity for sophomores to destress and socialize with one another after February Break.

“It was important to the officers that fundraising funds were used to make it free, so everyone could come and enjoy and be a part of the event,” Lee said.

On the day of the movie night, leadership members met in the student center 30 minutes early to set up tables and food. Starting from 6 p.m., students arrived at the movie night to socialize and relax. Cochrum, Lee, and activities director Mark Higashioka were also present to chaperone the event.

By the end of the event, only three pizzas were left over, which were distributed among students and supervisors to take home.

“We think it was quite successful, because the amount of people who came was really close to the amount we estimated, and we finished the majority of the food we ordered,” Musani said.