As Senior Class Prez of my high school, I inherited the task of planning our 10-year reunion. In 2012, I worked with a small committee of three to plan and execute a super fun party for the Humboldt High School class of 2002.
It was VERY important to us that the reunion be two things:
(1) inclusive
(2) affordable
Humboldt is a very diverse school and had a great vibe when I attended. It was devoid of cliques and extremely accepting of kids from all walks of life. We wanted to maintain that in our reunion planning, and I am so proud to say that it worked! Our reunion was everything I imagined, and more.
Inclusive
To include as many graduates as possible, our committee naturally formed a Facebook page and started making connections. However, we took it a step further by flagging specific students we could not find through a simple search and asking for more information through our existing network. We were able to find contact information for many of these students and reach out to extend the invite. Through our dedicated search, we had an excellent event turnout of around 85 students. Given our initial graduating class was only about 130 kids, we were extremely happy with this turnout. We even attracted a few teachers who crashed our event.
Affordable
Making the event affordable was really an extension of being inclusive, but it was definitely one of our primary goals. Humboldt was always considered to be an under-served school, and we did not have a budget to use for the reunion. The money our committee raised during senior year was spent on the class gift and our graduation overnight party. Our committee worked with McGovern's in St. Paul to find an affordable party rental space where we could supply a spread of food, a private bar, and plenty of space to reconnect. Our team kept the party relatively simple, mainly creating DIY projects for decorations, entertainment, and outreach. Using these methods, we were able to charge a cover of $12 per student, an extremely affordable night-out on the town to catch up with former classmates. We set up a website for registration to handle all of the money before the event, covering our costs up front!
