From Tuesday, Oct. 20 to Sunday, Oct. 23, students from all over the south, including Alabama, Tennessee and more participated in the Southern Association of Student Council’s (SASC) conference hosted at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

The conference was organized by students in the MSD leadership classes as well as by the council’s committee presidents, seniors Lily Galkin and Matthew Rosenthal. The leadership students were involved with setting up for the event including decorations.

“Students from student governments all around the southeast come for a yearly conference with guest speakers and get to discuss how to improve their student government,” senior and leadership student Olivia Binder said.

The committee heads ran the event and came up with fun, hands-on activities for the students. The annual conference gave students opportunities for networking, building leadership skills, sharing ideas and participating for service hours.

The event included workshops and seminars as well as fun activities for the students such as a petting zoo and dance breaks. The event also had students perform skits and activities to get to know one another.

The last day of the event was located at Extreme Action Park where students got to participate in the activities offered there; the theme for the event was Extreme Leadership so it was only fitting to include this day in the event.

“I thought the snack breaks were so fun because everyone would just dance in the courtyard and have a good time after all the work that day,” junior Lauren Buchwald said.

The students from MSD created posters and organized food for all of the students including Bubbakoos Burritos. The meals were a way for students to make conversation with one another in an informal setting around MSD.

“My job at SASC was to DJ for the other school when they would walk around the courtyard and during meals. It was really great to see all the student government students come together,” senior Josh Gordon said.

Over a thousand student leaders and advisors attended SASC. The conference also included general sessions where the MSD student government president Kylie Meesmer presented. Awards were also given out including member of the year which was awarded to Galkin.

“I had the best time talking with other students about how they run student government which gave me ideas of how to improve on our own,” Meesmer said.

SASC was organized meticulously by the MSD leadership team so students from all over the southwest had the chance to improve their own council at the school.