As students sat down on wooden stools in the woodshop room during lunch on Sept. 12, club president and senior Anika Ramachandran and vice president and junior Rachel Lennen gave a welcoming speech to about 15 students for the first meeting of woodshop club.

After introducing the club and possible plans for the upcoming year, Ramchandran asked if anyone had taken woodshop at MVHS. No one raised their hand. Many students knew they were interested in the club due to past experiences from Kennedy MS, but as advisor Ted Shinta pointed out, the machinery at MVHS is much larger, and harder to use.

However, despite the general lack of experience, the officers explained that it would still be possible for everyone to make simple projects such as pens, boxes or bowls. And above all, everyone in the room shared a common passion or interest in learning woodshop. Check out various members’ and officers’ hopes for the upcoming year below.

Sophomore Morgan Lee: “ My mom was looking for a jewelry box [so] I wanted to make one for her birthday.”

Club president senior Anika Ramachandran: “I mean MVHS is a very STEM oriented school and sometimes, academics and stuff like pure sciences and pure maths take precedence over things like [woodshop]….We’re really hoping to just get people interested in woodshop.”

Vice president junior Rachel Lennen: “ I don’t have any time in my schedule this year to do the class, so I thought this would be an opportunity to continue doing woodshop.”

Freshmen Chloe Wu Breshears: “Personally I’m very interested in making bigger projects like furniture.”

Freshman Katherine Nguyen: “I don’t have any experience with woodshop, but I’ve seen what people have created and I’m excited to see what I can create.”