Last month, the Class of 2026 attended the annual three day senior trip to Villa Roma Resort in the Catskills. This trip featured activities such as bowling, laser tag, paintball, skiing, snowboarding, snow tubing, pool, and ping pong.
Coordinator of Student Activities Jaime Baranoff said that her favorite part of the trip was participating in the winter sports with students. She said, “I was really happy that out of the 154 kids that we brought, I think 140 of them tried skiing or snowboarding, which is a huge number. Many of them tried it for the first time, and they had a good time.”
Senior Abraham Fahaskin said, “The activities were very fun to do with friends and led to nice memories. […] The hotel itself looked pretty good, and the staff were very inviting and hospitable.”
Students also had the opportunity to attend a rave-themed party on the first night and a Black and White party on the second night.
For senior Mikayla Fong, getting ready for parties with her friends each night was a highlight. “It was kind of like a big sleepover,” she said.
“Ms. Baranoff and Ms. Nakos played a huge part in doing more of the bigger work such as booking the resort rooms and collecting money while [Senior Class President Mohammad Nasrallah] and I assisted in informing our seniors about important information and helping to organize things [onto spreadsheets],” said Senior Class Vice President Bianca Chen.
To offset the cost of the trip, Ms. Baranoff and Ms. Nakos organized a fundraiser through Double Good, a digital fundraising company that sells gourmet popcorn. The fundraiser took place over the course of four days from October 20 to October 24. This fundraiser gave students and staff the opportunity to raise money for senior dues through selling popcorn online. Through the fundraiser, individual seniors could raise money for their own senior costs (including the cost of the trip) and others could raise money that would be pooled for the senior class as a whole.
While Double Good took 50% of the total profit, the rest of the money was used to offset everyone’s trip cost, and to help students that needed financial aid. According to Ms. Baranoff, the fundraiser made a total of $10,726, with $5,300 going towards senior expenses.
“Financially, it was a tough trip to pay for, so we really tried to fundraise and try to get financial aid from whoever wanted to donate,” said Ms. Nakos.
Seniors also spoke about how the senior trip allows for students to make lasting memories with their friends before graduation.
“I would definitely recommend it because it’s your last year here and you want to make memories since it’s your last year at Townsend. Why wouldn’t you want to go?” said Mikayla.
Bianca said, “I hope that many of us were able to make long lasting memories with our friends especially during our last year as high schoolers and were able to get some time to take a break and relax especially right after all our college applications.”
