Senior Sarah Oleson has received the worst news a club president can. Not only are her friends losing the chance to perform the speeches they’ve been perfecting for months, but students are losing on of their best platforms to be heard. As president of Mansfield Speaks, Sarah can’t just let that happen.
After opening Mansfield Speaks to the rest of the district, Sarah and the club will perform at the Dr. V Performing Arts Center on Tuesday.
“I believe that Mansfield Speaks is so important for our community and for our district as a whole now,” Sarah said. “It provides a very unique space where students can share their opinions on political issues, social issues, anything they are passionate about.”
For the past 10 years, Mansfield Speaks has been held at the Dr. V Center. This year, however, the club was informed that they could not perform there because of district budget limits.
“I was really crushed,” Sarah said. “I mean, we have so much fun at that venue every year and they’re just awesome to work with. It was really disappointing.”
Sarah worked with the club sponsor and Center staff to figure out how to have Mansfield Speaks back at the center.
“We’ve never before had venue issues,” Sarah said. “It’s more just about booking a date so that everybody could be there.”
In previous years, Mansfield Speaks only involved Mansfield High School. This year it was open to the district with one student from Frontier joining the club.
“I would like to see the other schools participate as well,” club sponsor Cindy Bridges said. “I hope the district continues to be very supportive by letting us use the Center so that it has that sense of importance.”
Sarah and vice president Campbell Speakes plan to keep expanding the program.
“This year, we were trying to go district-wide, so I think that in the future I want to focus again on that,” Campbell said. “More speakers would be a good idea for the future, even incorporating middle schools to get younger kids involved in public speaking.”
Mansfield Speaks is a student-led club open to anyone in the district interested in public speaking.
“It really reinforces the importance of youth voices to provide a stage like that,” Sarah said. “I really hope this year we’ll be able to pull audiences from a lot of different campuses in MISD and that we can make it bigger than ever.”
