Peyton Osborne
In sports, the rules are set, the coaches run the team, and the athletes play the game. However, Lee’s Summit West’s SAAC, or Student Activities Advisory Council, helps create conversation about the culture of sports, activities, and the school. They also have discussions about things they notice whether it be the culture of sports or the school.
“I think it gives them a voice for the variety of activities and sports … So it helps introduce them to a variety of other activities, maybe that they’re not familiar with, since we have a lot of people in that group,” athletic director and club sponsor Jereme Hubbard said.
Senior Joey Fosnow plays soccer at West and said that SAAC brings in students from multiple activities and athletics at West and works together to make suggestions on how to make athletics and activities better at West.
Fosnow has been in SAAC since her freshman year of high school. “I love getting to work with kids from multiple activities because a lot of times you’re just surrounded by just teammates. I like getting to be surrounded by people who play a different sport or are involved in different activities to see their perspective on what they need or what they think would help out in that area.”
Junior Paige Keep agreed, and said, “I really enjoy SAAC because I like working with other fellow athletes to make an impact in the community.”
Fosnow is excited for this year especially since she not only gets to meet different people but “I actually get to do it with my brother because he was nominated and elected.
SAAC is an elect only club, and some ways a student can be elected is by a coach or teammate. “It’s a good group of students made up from across a variety of activities and sports and basically, it’s a group that were nominated by a variety of coaches,” Hubbard said.
Fosnow said main points of discussion during their meetings are upcoming service projects. “One thing we talked about is Hope House which we’re doing here in the wintertime, so we talk about like what gifts we want to gather to donate and then we also talk about other things we want to do so we’re also doing like a Polar Plunge activity and then we’re also gonna work with Special Olympics because that’s one big activity we really like enjoy.”
Not only do SAAC participants discuss philanthropies but they talk about specific happenings at West. “During meetings we talk about West sports and recent achievements or future games. We also talk about future community events and create ideas on how we can help or get involved,” Keep said.
Fosnow also added that they are working on getting the message of SAAC out to the student body and community. “We actually are now working on trying to tie in social media with it, so last meeting we created an Instagram account and talked about how we could get the word around more,” Fosnow said.
Both Fosnow and Keep are involved in sports and activities outside of SAAC. “Outside of SAAC I go to STA for engineering, and I volunteer with Furry Kids Refuge. I also play competitive club soccer,” Keep said.
Even though most of the students that participate in SAAC are involved in other activities, they all have the same drive. “Our goal is to better our school whether it be in discussing ideas for schools, for facilities, for the culture and climate of the school, or to help out in the community and help other people and other students,” Hubbard said.
