German club co-presidents Beatrice Roberge and Atlas Benko hosted a celebration for the Köln (Cologne) Karneval, a traditional German holiday, and German teacher David Blumberg’s Teacher of the Year award on Wednesday, March 8. At the celebration, there was black forest cake and masks to decorate.

This celebration was similar to the Oktoberfest and Mozart’s 267th birthday celebrations hosted earlier in late September and January respectively. Benko stated they wanted to have another event “right before the tough part of the year starts” in April and May with AP exams and finals.

Benko “enjoyed seeing everyone and decorating masks” and the cake, which was “really yummy”. Junior Mia Lawrence, an attendee of the celebration, stated “I genuinely think it was the best black forest cake that I’ve ever eaten in my life”.

In addition, students signed a Teacher of the Year poster for Blumberg, expressing their gratitude for his teaching.

When planning for the event, Roberge expressed gratitude for German Club’s “wonderful leadership team”. It was “a combination of figuring out what type of activities we want to do” and “what type of food we want to bring”. Outreached included “making a couple different types of posters, putting them around school, having Herr B send out a mass email to all German students, and telling Mrs. Webb-Peploe to send it out in her Monday updates”.

When Roberge and Benko took over as co-presidents this year, one thing they hoped to do was to increase the club’s engagement with the student body. “We just wanted to have more events to publicize the club and get more members because I feel like with a lot of other cultural clubs on campus, you’re actually affiliated with the club versus for German, it’s more a class. That’s why we like throwing events like this because then people are actually interested,” said Benko.