Edie Himmer

The Unity Day assembly will take place during Life class on the football field, where students will fill the stands.

With food trucks for students during an extended lunch, Unity Day 2025 will take place on Friday, May 23. The Associated Student Body (ASB) has been planning aspects of the event since the start of the semester. 

Mia Harmon, senior, has been the ASB president this year and helps conceptualize and carry out school events like Unity Day.

“Unity Day is something that we always kind of progressively plan for months, but it doesn’t really start kicking into action until after prom,” Harmon said. “Throughout the whole month of May we have so many events going on. We start with May Day, and then it’s right to prom, and then it’s right to Unity Day. Everything can feel very rushed, and that’s why it’s important for ASB to make sure we’re progressively planning little parts of it.”

This year, Unity Day will feature several different pieces that all come together in the event: club booths with activities and food, live music, and games such as tug of war and bouncy house races.

“There are all these little bits and pieces that go into play, and honestly, we are always adapting with it as well. There [are] things that happen day-of that we kind of just need to pivot and work around. And no matter what, it always turns out to be a really, really fantastic product,” Harmon said. “I think for ASB, it’s all about that adaptability. Because while we can start planning things months and months in advance, no matter what, it’s gonna come down to those last couple of days where we’re perfecting things.”

With Memorial Day weekend posing a threat to student attendance on Friday, Blake Williams, ASB adviser, has been planning the event with the interest of students’ enjoyment and presence in mind.

“I hope each year they participate and enjoy it more,” Williams said. “It’s a shorter assembly and then more of a field day. But it’s hard because so many students on this campus do that thing where they’re like, ‘I just didn’t know what was going on.’ So if they don’t know [and] if they don’t engage, then there’s no way of growing it.” 

Following their Clubs Got Talent win and during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, the Asian Pacific Islander club (API) will be featured in the event. Lauren Shin, sophomore, is an API officer who will be helping the club serve boba and host a version of “Squid Games” on Friday, based on the Netflix show.

“Back when ‘Squid Games’ season two released, we knew we wanted to make a mock version of [it],” Shin said. “Last year we did the dalgona, which was the cookie [cutting]. We planned out more games like ‘red light green light’ [and] ‘mingle’ to prepare for it.”

API is working with Sharetea to sell multiple new boba flavors for students at Unity Day, and hopes that the popularity of “Squid Game” will help bring attention to their booth.

“We hope it’ll be pretty profitable because we’re selling boba too,” Shin said. “We really wanted to donate part of our funds to an Asian Pacific Islander charity. We hope it’ll be successful because ‘Squid Game’ was so big in season two, and now season three will be released.”

Williams hopes that true to the purpose of Unity Day, students will be able to connect with each other and bond over the event.

“It goes back to Greek theater— you came together for these things as catharsis. You laughed together, you cried together, you felt together,” Williams said. “So when you had a festival [or] when you had an assembly, it was the town coming together to have this unifying experience. Even if you hated it, that’s what you talked about for two months. This was literally what kept the community going. They were the stories that everyone knew, that everyone engaged in, and that’s what you talked about for the two months in between.”