SDA Community Day, originally scheduled for Dec. 16, will now take place this coming February to give the organizers more time to prepare.

Senior Kate Shapiro, one of the leads in planning the event, said the primary cause of the schedule change was simple logistics. “The club is more student run this year, making coordination a little more difficult,” she said, “but also more rewarding.”

February seemed an appropriate alternative, given that students will have just transitioned into their new classes for second semester. “Community Day will help them break into feeling more comfortable,” said senior Jackie Urenda, another head organizer.

For some students, the date change is a bit disappointing. “I was really looking forward to getting to do the Community Day activities with my second period, Calc III class,” said senior Stacy Li. Still, she understands the reasoning. “It’ll be good for the sake of maintaining the quality of Community Day and the high standards last year’s events created.”

“We lost Ms. McCluskey as a key advisor this year,” said Shapiro, referring to retired Spanish teacher Suzanne McCluskey who helped organize the event last year. “So we just want to be able to make her and the rest of the faculty proud of what we can accomplish.”

At this time, both Shapiro and Urenda said they are no longer seeking additional facilitators from the student body. Initially, they had a difficult time in gathering enough self-nominated student volunteers, whose roles will be helping run the activities come February.

Shapiro attributes this primarily to the mandatory application that was introduced. “We wanted an application so that anyone who was genuinely excited about being a facilitator and contributing could be one,” she said. The facilitator training date will be announced after the organizers have received confirmation on one of the suggested dates for the event itself.

In regards to its structure, Community Day will relatively parallel that of last year, with a series of in-class activity sessions and two assemblies featuring student-focused videos. Shapiro did, however, allude to an “awesome, new theme” that will set the tone for 2015. For now, she said, it will remain secret. When asked if the details of this theme were explicitly secret, she offered only a, “Mhmm.”

Although students will now have to hold out two more months for Community Day, the organizers are already excited and gearing up for what is to come.

“What I’m most looking forward to is, hopefully, seeing kids open up,” said Urenda. “Also, feeling the unity of our school, and letting them know that we are all a community. We all belong.”