When the freshman class realized that Homecoming was going to be at the end of September — weeks earlier than last year’s Homecoming date — and the other grades had already started preparing, they feared that they wouldn’t finish on time. Without an elected class office over the summer, freshman Sonali Shanbhag stepped up to put the framework for Homecoming in place.

“Generally, it was more of a support thing that happened,” Shanbhag said. “I stepped up because some of my friends and my sister encouraged me to do so.” Her sister is senior Mitali Shanbhag, the ASB president.

After adopting useful skills during her eighth-grade Redwood Middle School Leadership class, Shanbhag said that she learned how to communicate in a professional way and coordinate events.

Over the summer, she started the effort by creating a Facebook group for important announcements and posted a survey asking for dance, decorations and script signups.

After the freshman class election two weeks into the school year, freshman class president George Bian said he appreciates Shanbhag’s hard work in giving them a starting point to work with.

Added class representative Vivian Lin: “Without Sonali, we probably would still be doing decorations right now and wouldn’t have started our practices on several of our dances. She got us motivated and pumping with adrenaline.”

Even after contributing so much to Homecoming, Shanbhag decided not to run for class office because she said she said too many other activities and is enjoying her other electives Nevertheless, she has continued to help the freshman class officers with organizing the dances and decorations, choreographing the finale.  

Although Homecoming planning is often time consuming, Shanbhag said that once others started to help out, the work became a lot easier. With freshman Risa Carter and Elaine Toh heading decorations, Alena Jarret writing the script and Shanbhag managing dances, all bases were covered.

“Everyone has been taking a huge stand in what we’re doing,” Shanbhag said. “I don’t think I [deserve all of the] credit, because if no one else decided to perform or participate, none of it would be happening.”