Last week, the Fine Arts club put together its last Zombie Tag for the year, where the students ran for their lives away from the coming zombies from 2:45 pm to 5 pm. They sold tickets throughout the week of May 8th for five dollars, and they continued to sell the tickets after school on the day of the event. About thirty to forty people showed up to last Friday’s zombie tag.
Before MHS teacher and Fine Arts club advisor, Joseph Luongo, joined the MHS community five years ago, he said that all of the proceeds went out to, “various charities to fund the Fine Arts Club.” Approximately two hundred dollars was made from last week’s zombie tag. All of the money raised from selling the tickets goes to the Malden High School’s art department.
Students who helped monitor the events also helped enforce, and explain a lot of the rules of the game for first time players. The humans had to throw socks at the zombies, which would then freeze them for ten seconds if they couldn’t dodge the attack in time. To make things harder for the humans, they were limited to the second and third floors of the entire school, and they were prohibited from hiding in the stairwells. Also, humans couldn’t hide out in any of the rooms throughout the hallways reserved for the game.
After planning the event during a handful of officer meetings and obtaining permission for setting a date for Zombie tag, the Fine Arts Club spent a lot of time promoting Zombie tag through ticket sellings during lunch. Aside from holding officer meetings, the officers of the Fine Arts Club also communicated with each other through Facebook’s Messenger group chats.
Zhao Malisha, a junior at MHS, and one of the coordinators of the Zombie tag event, said that one of the obstacles the Fine Arts club faces with promoting the Zombie tag events is that, “many of the people just buy the ticket on the day of the event so [the Fine Arts club] can’t really predict how many people will show up,” which is an important factor in assigning the zombie positions for the event.
She explains that they also ask around for people who will be available to volunteer and help monitor on the day of the event. Also, some of the officers had to make announcements to remind the players of the rules to the game, and how much time is left before they do a headcount of whose left for humans and zombies. Luongo said that preparing and carrying out the zombie tag events are “[a] group effort,” comprised of both Fine Arts club members and of people volunteering to help. The level of teamwork between the Fine Arts Club members and the cooperation of the participants to these school events is what helps make zombie tag happen and more enjoyable for everyone involved.
