By Jessica Stenglein
Special to the Picayune

On Feb. 14, students at Westlake High School enjoyed Valentine’s Day with traditional flowers and entertaining Matchmakers. The American Sign Language Club has raised funds by selling Valentine’s flowers for five years, and the WHS Student Council has sold Matchmakers for more than 10 years.

Students preordered roses from the ASL Club and were able to add a personal message to be delivered with the flowers. On Valentine’s Day morning, ASL club members gathered in the ASL classroom to wrap the flowers in tissue paper and tie ribbons on them. The roses were then delivered throughout the school day to their respective recipients.

“[The flower sale] teaches the students responsibility and how to work together as a team,” ASL teacher Barbara Vinson said. “It also teaches them about business.”

“The best thing about selling flowers is going into a teacher’s classroom and seeing the look on a person’s face when they receive a flower,” ASL Club secretary junior Kristen Mele said. “Everybody’s excited to get a flower and know that they’re thought of on Valentine’s Day.”

The ASL Club normally sells 400 flowers and uses the proceeds to throw parties for elementary school children at Texas School for the Deaf and to treat hearing impaired high school students to dinner.

“My favorite part of the ASL Club is that five or six times a year we throw parties for the deaf and hard of hearing children at Texas School for the Deaf,” Mele said. “It’s really fun interacting with the kids and being able to communicate with them through sign language.”

Another way students got into the Valentine’s Day spirit was through the Matchmakers that Student Council sells each year. This fundraiser is done through a Canadian company that matches students based on their answers to survey questions created by the Student Council and the company. Some of the Student Council questions are humorous such as, “What’s the most overused phrase at Westlake?”

“The students fill out answer sheets to various questions, some of which come generic from the company, and some of which the student council officers get to come up with on our own to better relate to our students and our community,” student body president senior Steven Wilbanks said.

Students pay $2 for their results, and this money goes to the Student Council for use on various projects. The results contain a list of people who they are most compatible with in their grade and in other grades. The results also contain most compatible friends, most opposite, mystery matches, celebrity matches, birthday trivia and horoscope matches.

“I think it gets the students excited about Valentine’s Day,” Wilbanks said. “I have heard stories from students who have actually met each other after seeing they were matched up and have been friends ever since. Whether it’s true love or true friendships, the Matchmakers bring students together.”

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