Lloyd’s seminar class wins door decorating contest two years in a row
The Red Ribbon Week contest gives students a unique way to collaborate
November 2, 2022
JagPride, Mill Valley’s “Students Against Destructive Decisions” club, hosted their annual door decorating competition which lasted all of October, and judged the classroom doors on Thursday, Oct. 27. The contest is open to all seminars and follows a theme in conjunction with Red Ribbon Week, which promotes a drug-free lifestyle and safe choices.
This year, seminar classes were given the theme “celebrate life.” A few weeks were given for classes to construct their doors and create something that followed the theme.
According to JagPride freshman Leilah Perry, many doors were decorated with Halloween related items such as Ghostbusters, Hocus Pocus, ghosts and spiders.
On Thursday Oct. 27, club members stayed after school to go door to door and judge each entry. Doors were judged in three categories: visual impact, craftsmanship and originality. The next day, winning doors were announced. Chemistry teacher Jill Lloyd’s seminar won first place and FACS teacher Lauren Stringer’s seminar was runner up.
Students in Lloyd’s seminar won the contest last year as well. This year, their door won because of how many elements it included.
“Lloyd’s [won] because it was very creative and it had a lot of things that stood out,” Perry said. “[It had] the man in the costume, and the spiders at the top of the ceiling.”
Students in Lloyd’s seminar came together to work as a team to plan their door. Some students even stayed after school to work on it, like juniors Austin Leiker, Sydney McGlasson and Brooklyn Lafon.
Lloyd shared that she enjoyed seeing students working together to make the decorations.
“[I liked] seeing authentic friendships and seeing authentic helpers,” Lloyd said. “When we start our collaboration, there’s a few people that are pretty quiet that become outspoken and are pretty funny.”
This activity is unique because it is a way to communicate important messages about mental health, drugs and alcohol.
School social worker Debbie Gudenkauf mentioned that JagPride receives tax funding from the ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) Fund. She reports how many students are impacted by what the club does and the money is given out accordingly.
“We can say every student in this school was given this message, because they walked by the doors [and] saw it on the video screens for the last three weeks,” Gudenkauf said. “What we know about prevention is the more you get that message, the more you make an impact.”
