As the season began to shift into spring, members of the National Charity League, or NCL, hosted their annual spring tea on the morning of March 14 at the Walden West Education Center. The event was the culmination of hours of organization and hard work by NCL’s class of 2012.

For the next five hours, approximately 20 girls from several different schools, including Saratoga High, Los Gatos High, Mitty and St. Francis, worked in order to set up and host the tea, which they had been planning for six months. The event had a sophisticated 1920’s era theme and the girls worked on everything from invitations to decorations to preparing food. During the tea, girls cleared tables and refilled courses.

“In order to prepare,” said sophomore Michelle Cummins, “we decided on the theme for the tea and helped choose invitations. We helped set up decorations the day of the tea; the clean-up was a lot of work, though, but we got it done.”

Although the tea only lasted two hours, more than 200 people attended, from grades six to 12. The tea is generally a presentation of the incoming sixth grade “Ticktockers,” or the girls involved in the league.

Despite a food shortage half an hour before the end of the tea, the event was still successful. The extensive decorations, preparing, time and expenses that went into occasion paid off, thanks in part to an emergency work session the Friday before the tea. Alumnus Rachel Jones was asked to paint a mural of a 1920s swing dance for the sophomore class. The painting was a focal point of Walden West’s large cafeteria.

NCL is a nationwide charity organization that allows mothers and daughters to work together performing philanthropic work, organizing different social events and planning and leading meetings. Popular philanthropies include Emergency Housing Consortion, where members can cook and serve food for the homeless, and Special Olympics, where many oversee athletic events for disabled competitors, as well as other local charities, like the Saratoga Library.

“I like helping people out with charity and community service and I also like working with my friends and mom,” said sophomore Nicole Fetsch. “For the tea, I enjoyed getting to experience what it would be like to plan out an event like this. It was definitely frustrating sometimes but afterwards you feel kind of accomplished that you pulled it off in the end, and it went pretty well.”