If you entered Room 225 at Milwaukie High School on a Wednesday after school, you would instantly hear the clicking of Chromebooks, the faint scrawling of a pen on paper, and quiet collaborative conversations in the midst.
Often, you can hear laughter drifting down the green hall of the English corridor. This stems from the constant games that the club advisors Jillian Moody and Erica Fuson plan. These games have included Taboo and dice rolling games. The activities help students form ideas for their latest stories, have fun with friends in the process, and bring the club community together.
Clubs are more than just something to do when school gets out or a spot to wait before getting picked up. Clubs give students a way to feel involved in the school community and in turn, gives them their own community to become a part of.
Milwaukie Academy of the Arts senior Lucia Vargas mentions that everyone in the club is supportive and willing to help each other out. Whether that be with developing a character, reading through a draft, or brainstorming plot points. The students in this club are incredibly supportive and always willing to look over each other’s stories.
“I can’t even think of a singular time where I’ve been turned down of asking someone to be an editor for me,” says Vargas.
Looking back on her long document of poems, Vargas mentions that she feels as if she has grown immensely since the start of this school year. From the overall content of her poems being stronger to her speed of writing getting quicker, Vargas is grateful for the impact the creative writing club has had on her writing journey.
Huddled at the station, the club waits patiently for the arriving MAX train. Why? Because they are heading to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Every year, the Arlene Schnitzer hosts speakers through the Literary Arts organization. These speakers range from authors, journalists, poets, Pulitzer Prize winners, and much more. The club frequently goes to see these speakers; the excitement of riding the MAX through the city never lets down.
Each meeting, the writers work diligently on their projects at the creative writing club. Amidst the work time, there is always room for chatting and collaboration. Through the games and activities, the students get to know one another in turn.
“There’s little moments and then those little moments build up over a year,” says Vargas.
LEGOs and Laughter:
Surrounded by collaborative peers bursting with creativity, junior Asten Parks has no regrets on joining the LEGO Robotics Club at Milwaukie. Parks plays a manager-type role in the club by organizing students and keeping everyone on track.
One of the activities that really strengthened the ever growing bond within the club was the racing of hands-free LEGO cars. The club had worked very hard for this event, utilizing their club time to build their cars. After much anticipation and hard work, the success of the car race showed that it was all worth it in the end.
Reflecting on this moment, Parks says: “It’s kind of like the same feeling you get when you finally do a big essay, right? Everything just coming together, it’s all working, and it’s nice.”
Parks often finds himself looking forward to his club each Wednesday. After his last class of the day, he gets to shake off the stress of the day and enjoy himself.
“I just feel relieved; I’m shifting from having to do work … and at least after all of this, once I’ve gone through my classes, I can relax, build something, talk to friends, make something,” says Parks.
Parks mentions that the club advisor, Robin Troche, is a key component in weaving the community together. Troche works very hard to make the club reach levels of excellence, often bringing snacks and stores LEGO bricks of all shapes, sizes, and colors in her very own classroom. Parks explains that Troche’s efforts mirror a feedback effect, and through all her hard work, the club members work harder on their personal projects and have even more fun.
In such a collaborative club, teamwork and problem solving is an essential skill. Getting to learn such skills in high school is also incredibly beneficial for after high school. From helping each other with group projects, such as creating a giant rainbow Plinko board for the school pride festival, to tweaking each other’s personal projects and offering feedback. Having a wide variety of students is important for working together efficiently and building life skills like problem solving.
“I’ve noticed the different grades have completely separate outlooks on the same problem, and that I find to be a very interesting thing,” explains Parks.
Bridging Together a Community:
One of the newest additions to the clubs at Milwaukie High School is Bridges Club, which was founded by Milwaukie junior Eimy Matus at the start of the 2025-26 school year. The club is designed for bilingual or multilingual students to connect with each other and look for ways to help out in the community and utilize their language skills. Some of these events have included volunteering as translators at tutoring nights or setting up stands to offer parents help when signing into StudentVue. Although the club does a lot of work outside in the greater community, Matus mentions that the club feels like its own community in itself.
Matus says that one thing that brings the club together is when everyone shares their favorite music genres and music from their cultures, saying on the matter: “It would just be like a one big party where we would all just share everything that we like about our culture with each other.”
Unlike a traditional affinity group that focuses on one (or similar) demographics of people, Bridges brings people of different backgrounds together who all share the same talent of being fluent in an additional language. Matus says that the club also works to interweave those of different grade levels, and that she has talked to people she would not have otherwise known. She describes the club as being very open and inclusive, and willing to learn from each other.
“Everybody is incredibly inclusive,” says Matus. “They’re all super nice. They’re all so willing to learn. So if anybody has an interest that they may not feel comfortable sharing. This club is definitely the place for you to go, because nobody will judge you.”
One standout event for Matus was getting to work with the Salvation Army on their toy drive for children around Christmas. It was one of the first big events the club helped out with, bringing a little chaos with it. While at the event, it started pouring, and the club members got drenched outside while handing out gifts to kids. But in the end, it was worth it for the club in getting to see the smiling faces of kids as they received their gifts, and through this chaos, the club got a little closer.
“One of the main things I love about the club,” says Matus. “You could just show off everything that makes you unique, and everybody will just be in awe.”