The rush is on, literally! Homecoming is here once again at Naperville Central and this year’s theme is “Sugar Rush.” Both staff and students have put time and effort into making this year’s dance and homecoming week a success. One of the most essential groups during homecoming week are the class councils. A significant task falling under the jurisdiction of the class councils is decorating the school with colorful ornamentation, matching this year’s theme. This adds energy to the environment during homecoming week which leads up to the dance at the end of the week.  

With this year’s theme, students have expressed high expectations for the decorations provided by the class councils. The freshmen class is following a Candy Land theme. According to Freshman Class Council (FCC) member Payton Schubel, their sugary decorations will be made up of shiny plastic, wrapping paper and newspaper. Since this is their first year at Central, the members brought most of these materials from home, and the others were brought by their sponsor, Nick Digiovanni.

“[We made] whatever we could think of with the materials that we had,” Schubel said. “The more colorful, the better!”

The Sophomore Class Council (SophCC) used streamers and doughnut bubble letters to decorate the hallway by the LRC. According to SophCC member Neya Thanikachalam, their colorful decor features “cones filled with spray-painted pillow fluff that resemble cotton candy.”  

On Sept. 18, the sixteen members of SophCC worked for several hours in order to put up their vibrant display. They purchased these decorations using fundraising money they procured during their time on FCC. With streamers, decorative cotton candy and doughnut bubble letters, the sophomores and their supervisor, Daniela Cirone, have turned a regular hallway into a candy wonderland.  

Candyland, an iconic board game, is what Junior Class Council (JCC) is setting out to make into a life-size reality. JCC member Anna Sellas took part in this decorating endeavor.

“We’re making a giant Candyland board with characters near the express stairwell,”  Sellas said.

JCC gave up much of their time to accomplish the feat of bringing this board game to life, and, like SophCC, purchased the pieces to this large board game using the previous year’s funding. A note from JCC is to beware of the stormy ice cream sea and sticky molasses swamp near the express stairwell.

The theme Candyland has proven to be a popular idea in terms of class council decorations. In addition to the juniors, the Senior Class Council (SCC) has also chosen to decorate their part of the school, the athletic hallway by the pool, after the board game. However, unlike the rest of the class councils, the seniors aren’t starting their decorations until Sept. 25.

“We are decorating our hallway with cutouts of characters from the game board,” Senior Class Council President Kristine Xu said. “[Since] we aren’t allowed to use actual candy pieces, we will be trying to replicate them.” 

The class councils aren’t the only ones who are in charge of decorating the school–many clubs and teams have their own hallways to decorate as well. Foreign language clubs such as German and Chinese club have decorated the hallway by the Honor Garden. The Literary Magazine has also decorated a wall on the second floor by the main staircase, along with the many other groups who have demonstrated their takes of “Sugar Rush” around the school.