Written by Sydney Fratamico|
Photos courtesy of Katie Fratamico, Hope After Loss, and Clinton Public Schools|

Morgan Interact Club participants or, Interactors, develop friendships within the club, with other clubs, and with the community around them. Interactors learn the purpose and importance of, “developing leadership skills and personal integrity, demonstrating helpfulness and respect for others, understanding the value of individual responsibility and hard work, and finally, advancing international understanding and goodwill.”- Rotary District 6540- all while simultaneously discovering the power of “Service Above Self.”

Our Morgan Interact Club, run by physical education teacher Kate Iverson, president Senior Gabby Bussiere, and vice president Senior Nina Kelly, has a busy fall to look forward to this year. Gabby and Nina come up with and filter ideas and create a solid plan for them. Their goal is for more kids to get involved in order to help give back to the community.

Gabby encourages others to join because she saw a club that had potential. She shared, “It introduces morals that kids from our schools can try to adopt.” She believes giving back puts our community into perspective and illustrates how Clinton students all need to help out.

To kick off the beginning of the new 2017-2018 Interact club, students volunteered in New Haven for an event called Hope After Loss, Saturday, October 14. Hope After Loss is an annual walk for those grieving the loss of a child during pregnancy or infancy. “We reach out our hands to all those who grieve the loss of a baby, and we walk out of the darkness together.” See the website for more information on Hope After Loss. The participants are able to honor and remember their child, and all together, find the light in their lives again.

Meghan Constantino, the organizer of the volunteers, assigned jobs for the event set up, clean up, and to overall make the event flow smoothly. Sydney Fratamico and Alena Curtis set up tables and signs and worked in the booth for those who were pre-registered. They crossed out the names of those who came in and handed them complementary bags, shirts, raffle tickets and a pamphlet. When Nina Kelly, Gabby Bussiere, sophomores Gavin Carlisle, Emma Iovene, Nick Bussiere, and junior Caitlin Turner arrived, they finished the registration and cleaned up.

Morgan’s Interact Club is sponsored by the Clinton Rotary Club. The Rotary Club helps the Clinton community and the Shoreline area. They serve the society in every way they can. They sponsored the event student, Emma Iovene and others attended at Stop and Shop. They handed out flyers to people walking into the store with a list of what was needed. When they received the food, it was loaded into a Shoreline Kitchens and Pantries truck. Emma shared, “It was nice to see how many people donated and were there to help out.” In addition to this, every Wednesday, members of the Rotary Club and the Interact Club go the soup kitchen to volunteer.

The Interact Club helped set up for homecoming, painted a Moana wave at Joel for the Monster Mash, and helped set up for the Monster Mash.

The group plans to send 1-2 members each week to the Rotary Club meetings and to host bake sales at home football games. Coming up this fall is the Thanksgiving Drive at Stop and Shop, a fall clean up, donation of dog toys for dog shelters, and the start of filling up laundry baskets with clothes and other items for Thanksgiving.

The club is greatly appreciated in the Morgan School. Students and staff have praise for the group. Senior Mary Kate Staunton shared, “I’ve been with this club since freshman year, and it has given me many opportunities to do nice things for other people, and I am so sad that it is my last year in the club.” Sophomores Maura Kelly and Natalie Novarro are new to the club this year. They shared, “It is a great way to get involved in the community and do great things for it.”

Though Sophomores Jenna Scanlon and Claire Pease are not in the club, Jenna thinks, “The club is filled with good people, and you can feel good about doing a lot of good things. It looks good for college too!” Claire said, “The club is good for the school and Clinton environment, and I think it would be cool to join next year.”

Vice Principal Tyler Webb said, “The Interact Club is important to Morgan because it allows kids to do something for others beyond Morgan.”

The Interact Club is an essential aspect of giving back to the society and is a great first step in making the world a better place. The Interact Club hosts meetings on Tuesdays at 7:10 am. Anyone interested in joining should attend.