The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School DECA’s Laughter Heals hosted assemblies in the auditorium during periods five and six on Jan. 16 and periods one and two on Jan. 17. The assembly was organized by the club’s project directors Macy Meis and Kyra Shultz and teachers were given the opportunity to sign up to attend with their classes.

The Laughter Heals Foundation, originally founded by comedian Craig Shoemaker, is an international nonprofit organization that advocates for the benefits of laughter in physical, mental, and spiritual health.

“I worked in cahoots with the organization’s founder, Craig Shoemaker,” Meis said. “He spoke about the organization at one of his comedy shows and I came up to him after the show. I told him I had a vision to bring this to students and I made it happen.”

While students filled into the auditorium, a slideshow of jokes appeared on the stage’s projector with a QR code allowing students to submit jokes to tell on stage. The assembly began with videos consisting of jokes and pop culture moments designed to get audience members to laugh, and afterwards, videos of Shoemaker’s stand-up comedy events rolled.

Meis and Shultz presented a powerpoint about the foundation, the club, and how laughter is a benefit for healing. Meis introduced “laughidation,” a combination of laughter and meditation that has participants fake laugh until they actually laugh. The pair then brought students and teachers up to the stage in groups, having them force laugh after stating a stressful event in their life recently.

Afterwards, students were chosen to attempt to get their teachers to laugh and then students were picked from the QR code to present their jokes to the audience. As the assembly went on, students were allowed to line up at the end of the stage to come up to the microphone and present a joke or comedy sketch.

“I was really nervous; I hate public speaking, but it helped that I made my whole schtick that I was overly awkward and not confident,” senior Connor Benson said. “I guess it worked because I won.”

Students and teachers who participated received a gift card to Dunkin’ Donuts, and some participants threw DECA shirts out into the audience.

“I think it went well,” Meis said. “Obviously it’s difficult to control a crowd when it’s open-ended, but overall I think people had fun and that was the most important part.”

Laughter Heals at MSD has monthly open-mic style meetings at school to talk about the science of laughter and provide a place where students can share funny stories. The club is planning a family night comedy showcase sometime around March that will be open to the entire community.