Pennridge’s Anti-Discrimination Club

Pennridge High School offers several different opportunities for its students to get involved outside the classroom. Pennridge’s variety of opportunities and activities for students are sports, after-school activities, and clubs. These extracurricular activities are provided to students to promote interaction in the community. The engaging and enriched activities encourage communication, involvement, positivity, and fun. The vast majority of Pennridge’s 56 Clubs are founded by students. The individuals of Pennridge clubs are caring and scholarly students with a passion.

Gemma Taylor is one of our stellar students, has founded the Anit-Discrimination Club at Pennridge. Gemma founded the club to gather like-minded individuals passionate about ending hate and discrimination.  The club members include Gemma Taylor (Founder & VP), Ms. Marni Berkowitz (Club Advisor), Grace Exler (President), Annika Vera (Information Officer), and many more members, including their media supporters. The amazing fundraisers and events from the club have impacted Pennridge students and faculty. Overall, Gemma proudly founded the Anti-Discrimination club for the Pennridge students and faculty, the Pennridge Family.

The Anit Discrimination Club is a group of close-knit and intelligent students “with a mission to end discrimination and overall hate”. The club is actively fighting discrimination and hate by bringing awareness to the issues at hand, locally and globally, and supporting minority holidays and important dates/events. Additionally, they are supporting Covid-19 mandates and guidelines, anti-bullying, LGBTQ+ Awareness, and many more anti-hate/anti-discrimination causes. Overall, the Anit-Discrimination Clubs’ goal is to make Pennridge a place where everyone feels safe and included.  Club Advisor Berkowitz says, “I hope that they are able to spread a message of love, a safe space for students to come and share their ideas with like-minded people.”

Furthermore, the Anti-Discrimination Club is involved in many fundraisers and drives or activities for important causes. The fundraisers and activities bring attention and traction to the club which brings in more student and teacher/administrator participation. The club utilizes the Ramble: the high school’s news channel, in order to promote events. All students watch the Ramble in their first periods to inform them about upcoming events to participate in which is the perfect place for the club to promote their activities and fundraisers. With the popularity of the events, the club became more popular. This popularity is needed for the club to bring awareness to the current events and to increase their donations to help the causes.

The Anti-Discrimination club is also associated with many important organizations through social media. For example, the Anti-Discrimination club shows its support for issues such as STOMP Out Bullying, Perkasie Pride, Youth 4 Unity, etc., by supporting their social media pages like Instagram. Specifically, the club held a Crumbl cookie drive that was featured on the Ramble and had excellent student participation. Lastly, the club’s personal page has a bio and post to advertise their club as well as the issues they are supporting. The Anti-Discrimination Club’s Instagram is @pennridgeadc. Show your Pennridge proud support electronically.

The Anti-Discrimination club is an amazing addition to all of the former clubs here at Pennridge. Many Clubs and Organizations support them with participation in activities/events and on social media. For example, the anti-discrimination club is associated with many other clubs through social media. Such as The Yearbook, Dear Pennridge, PHS Unified, Pennridge Rise Up, and many others. The club’s Instagram features their club exclusively with who they are as a club, what they support, and advertising events to encourage participation.

Lastly, the club is thriving but still has plenty of room for additional members. The Anti-Discrimination club is welcoming to all and is happy with any forms of support. The club is a great way to get involved in your school and help bring positivity and love back into style. And as the Club Advisor, Berkowitz says, “I’d love for more people to join us…The more, the merrier…Extending an invitation to anyone who may want to join us in these discussions and spreading the message of acceptance.”