After classes at 4 p.m. today, RBHS student council hosted Hot Chocolooza, an event where students have the opportunity to receive free hot chocolate. It is held once a year on the Friday after winter break. Student council president senior Taylor DeVault said the event is a great way to warm students from the cold and help get everyone ready for school.
“It’s pretty much just a way we wanted to welcome back kids to Rock Bridge after break and kick off the new year,” DeVault said. “So we decided to do something festive and hot chocolate is typically fitting because it’s cold outside.”
The hot chocolate table that the council sets up is usually outside, unless dropping temperatures bring the event indoors. Students leaving for the weekend can pick up a drink either on their way out, or when staying after school. But before students can go and enjoy their free hot chocolate, student council puts in a lot of work, planning, and scheduling.
“There’s a committee group from student council and they assign people to pick up cups for hot chocolate or whip cream or whatever we need,” DeVault said. “They go out and purchase that, [which is reimbursed.] Then we just need manpower from student council and set up some tables and go at it.”
From a student’s perspective, the event might just seem a fun way to get free hot chocolate, but members of the council know it takes a lot of work to make it that way. Although freshman student council member Cassi Viox has only been on the council since the beginning of the year, she understands the amount of work a simple event requires to take place.
“We [had] to ask the lunch ladies for hot water, we had to go out and buy all the materials, [and] organize speakers and announcements,” Viox said. “We [made] posters and we had a lot of meetings to help organize all of that stuff.”
Even though events like Hot Chocolooza take a lot of time to schedule and plan, Viox said she enjoys organizing things and feels like she is making a change in RBHS while brightening others’ day. She said she thinks the event is great way to prepare students for second semester because “it’s something the entire school can participate in for free.”
While it usually attracts a large amount of students, this year quite a few were left with no hot chocolate. One of these students was senior April Muench, who had arrived outside only to find that there was no more drinks left.
“I was just really surprised [when I saw] they didn’t have enough for us [and] that they hadn’t planned better for more kids [to] drink hot chocolate,” Muench said, “which was kind of disappointing.”
Even though Muench left from her class downstairs only about a minute after the 4:05 p.m. bell rang, by the time she got upstairs she said the trash cans were full of Styrofoam cups and she was surrounded by students with hot chocolate. She, along with what looked to be 40 to 50 students, were told there was no more drinks left.
Similar to many students that didn’t receive hot chocolate, student council members like DeVault were disappointed when the realized they ran out of supply.
“[The problem was] we actually ran out of hot water. More and more people kept coming and coming.” DeVault said. “We underestimated how much cocoa to prepare so we’ve decided to hold another hot chocolate social next Friday.”
Students started showing up around 4:00 p.m., and in only 15 minutes the council started to run out, she said. Next Friday DeVault said they will prepare extra hot chocolate, and she hopes that “everybody who did not get to the tables in time will come back and get a cup of hot cocoa.”
Despite not getting the opportunity to get a drink from Hot Chocolooza, Muench said it is a great event that the everyone at school can get involved in without having to pay money, but still believes the council could have been better prepared.
“It was a good gesture,” Muench said, “a kind of community building thing for the whole school, but they probably should have planned a little bit better and had some more hot chocolate.”
By Grace Vance
Photo by Sury Rawat
What was your experience at Hot Chocolooza? Did you get hot chocolate?