By Nagyon Kim and Jasmine Oh

In hopes of further unifying the SIS community, the High School Parent Group (HPG) hosted the fifth annual Family Fun Day (FFD) on Sept. 27. FFD, which has been bringing together staff members and students from all grade levels since 2010, consisted of 28 activity booths and attracted 1400 attendees this year.

The overall cost of FFD increased since last year because high school volunteers no longer had to pay for admission tickets. There was also a decrease in the number of water booths due to the colder weather. Even though the HPG had to utilize more funds and decided to replace a few of the most popular water activity booths, members were eager to make this year’s FFD the most enjoyable one yet.

“SIS is a very academically oriented school where students work extremely hard,” said Soon Yoon, HPG President. “Also, last year, many of our events were scaled down and in some cases cancelled due to the Sewol Ferry accident. Because of this, the kids have been waiting anxiously for FFD since they know the event was very enjoyable for them in previous years.”

According to the HPG, this year’s FFD was more successful than the previous year’s due to the increased number of participating clubs and attendees. At the event, Red Cross Youth (RCY) earned 2468 tickets from the most popular booth, the High Slide, while UNICEF earned 1256 tickets from Grand Castle Bounce. The food court was also popular, as attendees spent 9128 tickets on it.

“I thought FFD was extremely successful this year,” said Eunice Kang (12), HSSC Executive Public Relations. “It was very well organized  compared to previous years and everyone worked diligently and volunteered to make the event function smoothly. There were many new booths that were popular and they helped bring in a lot of people.”

Despite the addition of new events that attracted many attendees, the HPG was initially concerned about selling tickets because Chuseok Break happened during the middle of the sales period. However, HPG still sold a total of 883 tickets, 182 of which were sold at the gate, compensating for the initially slow rate of ticket sales. With a total of about 1400 attendees, including volunteers, HPG earned more profit than they did last year.

“What I really like about FFD is that the moms are so creative,” said Mercy Jesudass, high school counselor. “In the States, the parents just order from a party store, but here, [the parents] come up with all the ideas for the booths, the materials and everything else from scratch. I think this is what makes FFD unique.”