From Dec. 3 to Dec. 7, Ventura High School hosted Ventura Strong Week on the Senior Lawn in memory of the one year anniversary of the Thomas Fire that started on Dec. 4, 2017.

Senior Sydney Votruba, Vice President of Associated Student Body, stated, “I came up with the idea because we do a get together with all three ASB’s from all three different schools, and we came up with the idea to try to commemorate how our community came together during that difficult time.”

The Strong Week started off on Monday, Dec. 3, ASB seniors Hayden Ijames and Votruba gave students the opportunity to write letters to firefighters.

On the following day, ASB seniors Janelle Chavira and River Winn held a booth for students to write inspirational quotes on painted rocks. Winn, Entertainment Committee President in ASB, said, “In preparation we painted on rocks and brought them in to ASB and had people donate rocks, and today, we are having people write inspirational quotes or anything they want that’s positive on the rocks to be shown at open mic night on Friday.” [huge_it_slider id=”77 “]

On Wednesday, there were lunch games with a T-shirt as a prize. Senior Charlie Hammel, explained he played Hacky Sack with VHS science teacher Jared McEntyre and it was “a lot of fun.” According to Hammel, junior Henry Dalton won the T-shirt prize and has “mad skill.”

On Thursday, students from the National Association of Students Against Gun Violence and Sebastien DeClerck made an “I am strong” wall.

Votruba said, “So what people were supposed to do is sign their name or write a message about how they felt during that time and it’s just basically how we are all coming together like ‘I am strong’ together.”

On Friday at 4:00 p.m. in the senior lawn, there was an open mic, which Votruba said was “super cool, a bunch of kids karaoked and it was super funny but it was nice to see everyone coming together.”