![Reaching out. Christopher Lesh, student at Central Catholic High School, serves ice cream during the event on March 2, 2025, at the Portland waterfront. Central Catholic was just one of the schools that sent student volunteers out to cook, prepare, dish, and serve food. Interact club’s co-president Rachel Gerber, junior, plated the food during the event. “I like how direct the contact is,” Gerber said. “You’re there [and] you’re just doing something good. It’s simple, it’s easy, you can feel good about it.”](https://wlhsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/interact-1-edited-1200x744.jpg)
*WEB CONTINUATION: This article originally appeared in Volume 105 Issue 3 of our news magazine, Amplifier.
Taking newly graduated students to a secret location each year, the all-night graduation party has been a tradition at the high school since 1987. This year, after the graduation ceremony on June 3, the seniors will get on a bus to an unknown location and celebrate their graduation into the night and into the morning of June 4.
Heather Gilroy, co-chair for the grad party, met with the rest of the grad party committee in September to start organizing the graduation party. Throughout the year, numerous fundraisers were held to help fund the party.
“We try to have something for everybody and absolutely make sure that everybody has a great time,” Gilroy said. “One of the most fun aspects of the party is they don’t know where the party is. It’s a mystery every year. There’s a ton of things for them to do: there’s games, there’s prizes, there’s music and dancing, there’s a swimming pool. Definitely a lot going on, something for everybody.”
Noah Campean, senior, plans on participating in the all-night grad party.
“[I’m looking forward to] hanging out with friends,” Campean said. “That’s basically all I’m looking forward to. I don’t really know where it’s gonna be, so not really much to [look] forward [to] today.”
To help encourage ticket sales, students who bought a ticket at the reduced price of $60 before May 15 were entered into a raffle to win a new TV. Since May 16, tickets have been $75.
“We were definitely just trying to make sure that kids got their tickets early. It helps us out when people buy their tickets early, because we are calculating how many buses we need [and] how many burritos to order,” Gilroy said. “We’re just trying to pull a lot together, and it helps to have a good solid head count. We’ve sold about half our tickets now, but we still have more tickets to sell. The whole impetus behind doing that raffle was to just encourage people to buy their tickets as soon as they could.”
Last year, the event was also held on June 4, with the venue being Clackamas Bay Club. Gilroy hopes for this event to be a memorable experience for everyone who goes to the party.
“What’s been most gratifying for me as a volunteer through the years, is you hear students say they went to the party with sort of low expectations,” Gilroy said. “‘How cool can this be? Parents organized [it]? It’s probably going to be lame,’ but they actually ended up having a great time, and it really turned out to be one of their all time favorite memories of their high school experience. So I hope that the kids who go this year have the same experience. It’s just a chance for everybody to bond as a class and celebrate their four years of high school and their achievement graduating. It’s our toast to them, and I hope they have a great time.”
