Join the club

Alderwood Middle School may be the only school around with a Supernatural/Paranormal Club, a Wii club and a Hot Cocoa club.

That’s because students at the school get to create their own clubs.

“We could say, ‘Let’s have this club or that club’ and they’d say, ‘Yeah, right,’” said Kris Freywald, the school counselor who runs the program.

This year, about 20 clubs run the gamut from anime to cooking to the book “Twilight.”

The clubs, most of them after school, give kids a safe place where they can meet or spend time with friends and connect with teachers, Freywald said. Many students would play video games at home alone if they didn’t stay after school, she said.

At the Wednesday, Jan. 21 meeting of the Wii club, students played Wii tennis in teacher Mary Herford’s darkened classroom, the game projected on the overhead, not lifting their eyes from the game for a second.

Student Ben Zimmerman said he’d rather play at school than at home.

“It’s better here because you have friends,” he said.

Student Arizbeth Pena said she’d be home baby sitting her 3-year-old brother Wednesdays if she wasn’t at Latino Dance Club. Her mom doesn’t work Wednesdays and that frees her up for the club, which she enjoys because she can do dances from her culture, she said.

At the club’s meeting last week, energy bounced off the walls as Pena and other club members — all girls — practiced their moves.

“I go first, then her, then her! Ah, nobody’s listening…” said student Jeanette Garcia with a laugh.

The students choreograph dances to Latino music that they will perform at the school’s multi-cultural night in spring.

Hot Cocoa Club meets before school Fridays and sprung from conversations between student Max Jernigan and teacher Mary Herford.

“I was hoping it would be coffee, but they wouldn’t let us,” Jernigan said.

The thought was: Many kids are out there, some of them new, who have a hard time making friends. So now Jernigan sets up the cocoa powder and other necessities and roughly 15 kids show up with mugs Friday mornings to chat.

Jernigan is just a nice, social kid, Freywald said. That’s the case for all the student-created clubs — it’s the average student who gets involved, she said.

Student Sean Nelson helped start the school’s robotics club after talking with his parents, who had an interest.

Competition season is over, but he and teammates Frank Koenig and Gregory St. Clair showed up during their free time Wednesday for the Enterprise interview, armed with competition examples and an award plaque.

They like the competition, the camaraderie and the preparation for high-tech careers, they said.

Freywald has seen shy kids with a hobby get up their courage and start a club.

“They just need to be given the opportunity to have a leadership position,” she said. “Give a kid an opportunity and 99 percent of the time they’ll step up.”