Hawkfest Helps Make-A-Wish

Hawkfest is a festival put on by Arrowhead DECA takes place Friday, September 28th. Starts at 4 p.m and goes until 8 p.m. Everyone is welcome to come, not just Arrowhead students or people within the Arrowhead district.

DECA is a business and marketing related club where Arrowhead students make a project and compete in two activities, roleplay and a project. They are business competitions and students compete against kids from other schools.

At Arrowhead, if students are in one of the advisor and marketing teacher, Steve Melzer’s classes, you are in DECA. To be on the leadership team students have to fill out a form at the end of the school year and he chooses for the next year.

Hawkfest, an event that started in 2013, raises money for multiple charities, including Make-A-Wish, MDA, HAWS, and more. Hawkfest is a festival where there are inflatables, rock climbing walls, food stands, face painting and booths. Clubs at Arrowhead take part and have their own booth, like the girl’s basketball team, hockey team, and boys soccer team. At these booths they have games that students from the sports or clubs lead.

The Leadership team, made of kids who apply for the positions and Melzer start planning and choose the theme for Hawkfest in late April/early May.

The students on the leadership team and students in Mr. Melzer’s classes are encouraged to get sponsors for this event. The average amount of sponsors is 45 and this year, the amount of money that was collected from sponsors totaled to $34,000. That is the most money to be raised.

Half of the $34,000 is donated to the charities mentioned above. In the past a majority of the donations goes towards MDA. However this year, the Arrowhead DECA decided to take it in a different direction and is donating more of it to Make-A-Wish as they are helping sponsor Isabella. Isabella is a girl from Pewaukee who has a severe heart condition. Her wish is a Disney cruise.

Clubs outside of Arrowhead, like YoungLife also partake in Hawkfest festivities. Each year, typically they have a dunk tank. Senior Joey Peters says, “Yes I have been. The YoungLife dunk tank was my favorite. By far. I was working it.”

Kids can enjoy, facepainting, hairstyling, speelio caves and many more activities. They typically are one ticket per game but some games are more. Tickets are 50 cents. Another option is buying a wristband for 20 dollars which allows you to enter into the bouncy houses and games with just showing your wrist to the workers.

Culvers, Picnic basket, Rocky Rococo’s  and Piggly Wiggly are just some of the main sponsors. They bring food and sell it to the people who come. Each of these sponsors are placed in various spots to create more traffic throughout.

Since the theme of Hawkfest is Blast to the Past (60’s and 70’s) there will be an Elvis impersonator on the entertainment stage. Along with Elvis, there will be dancers from Elation Dance Studio, and performers from Broadway Company.

Hawkfest gains a lot of traffic because there are other events going on at Arrowhead, including the football game. Kids and parents to go right from Hawkfest to the game. Arrowhead’s football team has also been on a winning streak gaining excitement from fans.

Arrowhead senior and football player Davis Zeutzius says, “I walk around but I have the game so I can’t really go.” Since Hawkfest is occurs during the football game football players and Hawkettes are unable to spend much time there. Hawkfest takes place in Arrowhead High School’s athletic  North Campus parking lot.