As we enter the school year, there are great opportunities to engage across the school and community with all the different clubs Pace students lead! Regular clubs around Pace allow people with similar interests to come together. Community engagement clubs provide opportunities to get service hours in different ways from volunteering or raising money. Pace offers a vast range of different clubs with this article only covering a small amount of them.
The Engineering Club is a hands-on learning experience for building a go-kart and learning about kart mechanics while building a cart. They have an allotted budget of $400 to use at each meeting to build. This year, they are working on a grass-kart, being able to learn as they go along the building process. This year’s club leader is Senior Marco Juarez. “I joined the club originally because I have a passion for working on vehicles and am looking to study mechanical engineering and motorsport. My favorite moment from last year was when we finally got the motor of our cart to respond to the throttle pedal after struggling to get the water pump off the engine,” said Juarez.
Miracle Knights is a community engagement club at Pace that raises funds for the local Children’s Miracle Network Hospital (Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta). All the money raised helps provide programs, purchase equipment, and fund facility renovations at the hospital to meet the needs of the children. The club is raising funds between now and the Dance Marathon, an event held sometime in January at Pace. At this event, you can meet some of the patient families treated, and dance and play games with the children. At each meeting, the club discusses fundraiser ideas and pushes for the group. “My favorite moment from last year was when we had a pickleball tournament to raise money, the turnout was great,” said Senior club leader Olivia Nelson.
The Self-Improvement Club is about guiding those who seek to better themselves, whether it is physically, mentally or emotionally. At each meeting, the club covers a self-improvement-related topic, typically with the telling of a story followed by an actionable step that can be taken. Each meeting also has a healthy snack! “I wanted to run this club because I felt as though I’d found something beautiful in life that I wanted to share with others. My favorite moment was probably the meeting on stoicism we had last year because Roan and I dressed up in togas and it was a lot of fun immersing ourselves in the topic,” said junior Hayes Pollard, the current leader of the club.
Knight Capital is a club dedicated to learning about the basics of investment. Thanks to the generous donation from a Pace parent, the club is allowed to manage a portfolio with real money. Each month they have a topic, with the first meeting of the month being an introduction, the second having a guest speaker, and the third sharing new ideas for stocks under the topic and deciding who will present for a company. The last meeting of the month featuring a presentation and voting on whether or not they should invest. “It is a fantastic leadership opportunity and investing is something I really like to learn more about and am passionate about,” said junior John Hardesty, the current president of the club.
La Amistad is another community engagement club at Pace dedicated to helping out kids of different ages and backgrounds in their education. They work with kids from first grade to fifth grade from various schools in the area. At each meeting, the club helps each kid with their homework or plays educational games with them. “I love working with kids and just being around them so this club was great for me. I hope I can get others to enjoy it as much as I do,” said sophomore Lily Vadnais.
