![Alexander Oki ‘28 picks up trash in the lower parking lot Feb. 20. According to Keep America Beautiful, the majority of the trash found on both roads and waterways consists of fast food wrappers and packaging, receipts and plastic beverage bottles. Clubs like the National Honor Society (NHS) offer students the opportunity to earn service hours by cleaning up the trash in the parking lots. “[The trash] makes us look very unhygienic and unmotivated to be a proper school,” Emberlyse Vidal ‘28 said. “It makes us look like we just don't care about our students' environments.”](https://rockmediaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/20260220_1355020-2-1200x904.jpg)
by Bella Lin
What does it take to be a leader? To start something new? To develop and establish ideas?
Students discover the answers to such questions in a variety of situations. Communication and collaboration are required in team assignments, sports and most evidently, the creation of new clubs.
Mishika Bhatia, Asmi Patil, Reva Mehrotra and Sarah Callahan, a group of four sophomore girls, went through the struggles of such a task.
They make up the officer team of a recently developed program titled “Girls’ Persist,” a STEM-focused club designed to encourage leadership abilities and female empowerment through practiced speech, advertisement and planned projects.
media by Photo courtesy of Mishika Bhatia
The Girls’ Persist club trifold stands in front of the gym entrance during the Activities Fair Aug. 22. Consisting of pink and blue--the colors of the “Lady Trailblazers” organization, which Girls’ Persist is under--and decorated with fairy lights, the trifold provided information about the program while the officer team promoted the club to possible applicants. “The Club Fair was an incredible opportunity to meet our new members,” President Mishika Bhatia ‘26 said.