After a year of disrupted traditions at Diamond Bar High School, Club Rush has returned alongside the in-person school year, boosting the many clubs that were impacted by limited opportunities last year.

Last year, distance learning in the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic forced Club Rush to transition online for the first time.

Clubs that participated in the event created promotional videos, which were posted onto a collective Google Doc for students to peruse and sign up.

“The Senior Board of [the] California Scholarship Federation held multiple meetings on how we would execute our main goals: recruitment and popularity,” CSF co-president senior Kevin Yang said. “Knowing the detriments that COVID brought, we came into the school year strong and willing to make an appearance.”

While several smaller clubs on campus were heavily impacted by the restrictions brought on by the digital school year, bigger and more well-known clubs faced similar hurdles. Particularly, membership decline and falling participation rates are areas of concern that clubs are grappling with.

“This year, membership is extremely important because we have been in a membership decline in previous years,” Key Club Lieutenant Governor of 35 East Division junior Marcus Fang said via Discord. “We want to boost our membership across all of California, Nevada, and Hawaii, so we encouraged all of our officers to reach out to as many people as they possibly could in order to encourage higher recruitment. We also all decked out in spirit gear and merch to stand out and we had a ton of props made to make sure we were extremely noticeable to DBHS students.”

USB also learned a great deal from hosting Club Rush remotely last year, incorporating some virtual aspects to complement the event this year.

“We have returned to how we held our Club Rush prior to the campus closing,” Activities Director Janna Van Horn said via email. “One area we continue to utilize more is our social media and Google Classrooms to promote and communicate the details for the event.”

In addition to this, an active Google Doc will be continually updated throughout the year with active and new clubs. The Google Doc will also include club advisors’ names in addition to existing information in order to increase club accessibility.

Clubs participating in Club Rush are randomly assigned locations around the Upper Courtyard on campus, with up to 15 clubs assigned each day. Throughout the entire Club Rush event, each club is allowed two opportunities to set up a booth and advertise their club to students.

“It’s great to see so many students passionate about their clubs,” Van Horn said. “It’s also very encouraging to see our students committing to these various organizations. After being off campus, it’s a great opportunity to come together and connect outside of the academic classroom!”