This year, the parking lot is going to look a little more decked out than usual. Alexis Rivers, Bronco yearbook editor-in-chief, 12, has come up with an idea to raise money for SPUB by having students buy and personalize parking spaces.

“It’s always been a thought in the back of my mind that buying parking spaces would be such a cool idea,” said Rivers. “I was actually at the end of the year yearbook conference, since I’m the editor in chief, and there was a spread about how these students raised all this money for painting their parking spots. I thought the spread looked so cool, if only we could do something like that. So I was like, why not?”

Rivers had to get her idea approved first; she had to present her idea to the school administration.

“I made a well thought out presentation, me and Mrs. [Anna] Manning, [adviser,] worked together on it, and I made an appointment to see Mr. [Marc] Williams, [principal]. I told him about it, and he was really jazzed about it, and he said he had to go tell all these different people and then he’d get back to me. It was a few weeks of different people approving it and so forth,” said Rivers.

After the approval, Rivers worked with others to figure out the logistics. They determined parking lot spaces would cost $35, instead of the normal $100 at other schools.

“I think it was worth it because usually other school’s spaces cost $100,” said Alyssa Fletcher, participant, 12.

With all this money from participating students, Rivers and Manning decided where the money would go.

“Part of the cost is actually to pay for some of the paint for them, so when they need to share a color, for instance, we’ll be able to provide some of that. Otherwise, SPUB doesn’t really profit off the sale of yearbooks very much, besides senior ads being some of our profit,” said Manning, “This will add to that, and that’s how we’re able to print the newsmagazine, how we pay for stampedenews.net and how we pay for printing the lit mag. So, over a period of years we might have a little bit of surplus we’re able to travel with, but mainly it helps pay for the other publications to get printed.”

This year was a pilot year, so only seniors were invited to participate. However, Manning and Rivers hope to open it up to underclassmen in the future.

“I would love to have everybody doing it, faculty and staff, I think it’d be so cool. Number one, it would make our school look awesome. I’ve seen parking lots where it’s been done and it just looks beautiful. Number two, it actually provides a lot of good information to the school because right now when we go out in the parking lot we’re like, who’s car is this? You know, those overhead announcements like your lights are on. Well, if everyone is in a reserved spot, we’ll be able to tell whoever their lights are on. It’s good information that way as it helps us know who is in our building. The only reason we didn’t do it this year is just because we didn’t really know how it would go,” said Manning.

Manning and Rivers hope to keep this going as not just a fundraiser, but also a tradition.

“I really hope this can become a tradition at Spring Hill. We have a really big parking lot, and I think it would be a good way to raise money for yearbook because we don’t get funding,” said Rivers.