by Dan Whooley

During the week of April 11th, Woodbridge High School observed Peace Week for the second consecutive year, an annual event run by the Social Justice Club in which students participate in everything from peaceful music to yoga exercises, all in the name of promoting tolerance and acceptance.

“While other schools have peace rallies, we tailored this to something more exclusive to WHS,” said Ms. Zadigian, an art teacher and head of the event. Along with Ms. Cuzzola and Ms. Marino, Ms. Zadigian advises the Social Justice Club, whose members suggested the concept of Peace Week last year.

“We tailored activities towards our student population,” Ms. Zadigian said, “including multicultural activities, to create unity among our largely diverse community.” Unity seemed to be an overlying theme of this year’s Peace Week with the inclusion of the Chinese and French Honor Societies.

This year’s event involved eight clubs and over fifty students, including the Language Honor Societies. A major contribution of the French Honor Society were small candies called “Peace Fortunes,” attached with messages of “peace, love, harmony, and encouragement in English and French,” according to FHS advisor Madame Zeitz, who hoped to “promote peace and maybe some French, too.”

Another major key to the event was tolerance, which art teacher Ms. Fasciale described as, “Paying it forward with kindness.” The concept was brought to life by Ms. Fasciale’s Art Club, who created a “Tower of Tolerance,” a large cardboard tower to be permanently displayed in the school lobby.

The tower was constructed using cement molds, and the column was attached to a metal base. Once set, the Art Club adorned it with messages, poems, and artwork by students, all promoting an environment of tolerance among the student body. Ms. Fasciale said she hopes it will become an annual project for the Art Club.

Accompanying the artistic and lighthearted aspects of the week-long festivities was the Gay-Straight Alliance’s annual observance of the National Day of Silence, a somber event, inspired by the infamous Matthew Shepard murder, which served as this year’s capstone to Peace Week.

During the National Day of Silence, volunteers refuse to speak throughout the course of the school day in an attempt to draw the public’s attention to the harassment and bullying suffered by members of the LGBT community around the world. The high number of participants in the Day of Silence suggest that Peace Week was indeed a success, with students going out of their way to create an environment of tolerance and acceptance.