Dear Freshmen,

Imagine for a moment that you take your first steps into the cafeteria today. Around you swarms a cacophony of unfamiliar vices, a bustle of unfamiliar bodies, a sea of unfamiliar faces.

Where do you sit?

You lug your backpack to a lone table and stare blankly at your netbook screen, wishing you were anywhere else. You are completely, utterly, chillingly alone as you watch the girls that are supposed to be your sisters laughing, eating, joking together.

A freshman’s experience in the lunchroom her fist day of school can make or break her high school experience. It’s defining. It’s the moment between acceptance and rejection, between laughter and tears.

And you, every single one of you, has the power to build up or destroy a classmate in the lunchroom today.

Your casual chatter, your feigned ignorance of her, sitting alone two tables over, your blatant disregard of her fragile, freshman feelings–it all will destroy her.

And you likely won’t notice.

Conversely, your casual, “hey,” your simple invitation to your table, one smile, one moment of recognition and acceptance, will define what might have been one of the worst days of her life.

Our solution: don’t allow anyone to sit alone today. Don’t allow any student’s first impression of STA to be one of rejection, of isolation, of fear. Don’t allow her opinion of your class to be marred by your insensitivity on your first day.

Imagine for a moment that you take your first steps into the cafeteria today. Around you swarms a cacophony of unfamiliar voices, a bustle of unfamiliar bodies, a sea of unfamiliar faces.

Where do you sit?

Just as you’re about to sit down at an abandoned table, heart sinking beneath your sneakers, you hear, “Hey. Do you want to come sit with us?” from a girl sitting happily amongst her friends.

Be that girl.