Every Wednesday, students walk into the Humanities Center to talk to their peers about school issues in the Student Government Senate. On the way into the room, many grab a plate of hot wings, tacos, or whatever food is being served that week. But not this year. Since Upper School students are not meeting in person, current Senate Heads have had to adjust the Senate food system. 

In order to continue providing meals to Senate attendees, the Senate heads created a food lottery system. Each week, a student from each grade is chosen to get food delivered to their house. If a student attends Senate, they get a point, and if they talk at least once during Senate, they receive another. The Senate heads use an algorithm on Google Sheets to randomly select a winner from each grade. 

“There’s not that much senior attendance, and so this has been a good way to still keep seniors involved,” Senate head and junior Eli Moog said. “And also, I think it’s drawn in freshmen, sophomores and juniors so we’ve been really happy with trying to make Senate feel more normal and also incentivize people to come into the discussion.”

Once a winner is chosen, the amount of points they have resets to zero. “That’s been a great way to ensure that it’s pretty random and fair,” Moog said. 

The Senate heads contact the winners from each grade and each of the four winners email the Senate heads to choose a meal to be delivered to their house. For delivery, the Senate heads use Postmates and schedule the delivery time so that the food will be delivered during or before Senate. “I think it’s a great way to increase engagement during COVID-19, and I think it’s one of the best plans that any organization within Parker has had of how to maintain what we loved about being in-person and bringing it to people virtually even if we have to sacrifice a little bit,” Student Government President and senior Carter Wagner said.

Last year, the Senate heads received $75 per week. This year, they are receiving $80 per week in the form of a $200 Postmates gift card every 2 and a half weeks. The cost of food, delivery, tips, and tax must be under $20. “You get less food, but this time it’s very much that you get to pick the place, you get to make it how you want, and I think it’s been really, really fun,” Moog said.

When the high school is in-person, the Student Government money is usually used for Senate food, Participatory Budgeting, and Committee funding for events such as lunches. “This year, Music Committee doesn’t need money to have a Spotify to run in the hallways, and normally there would be money for a committee to host some event,” Moog said. “Those are all great things, but none of that can happen, and sadly Senate lunches can’t happen, but I think we found a good way to still make it happen.”

During in-person school, having food at Senate allows students to go straight to Senate rather than having to go to the cafeteria. It is also an incentive for people to attend. “There are people who are like ‘maybe I want to go to Senate, maybe I won’t’ and they’re on the fence, and I think just having that little opportunity to win food, if it turns someone who might have not been engaged to become engaged, I think that that’s great,” Wagner said. “The point of it is to involve people as much as possible who wouldn’t necessarily want to be involved in student government.”

For the past few years, the Senate budget has been up for debate. In 2018, the Senate budget was lowered and a cap was put on the budget. One candidate for the 2019-2020 Student Government Treasurer believed that Senate was using too much money and another wanted to raise the Senate budget. 

At the beginning of the year, Wagner believed that $80 a week was slightly too much. “I felt that it was within my role to give a little bit of pushback on the amount that was being proposed and to make sure that we were spending our money as well as we could,” Wagner said. “At the time, I thought that we didn’t necessarily need a meal for all four grades to come and that at a certain point we had reached a level where people were showing up regardless of the food incentive. Now I have a lot of faith and trust in the Senate heads, and I think they’ve been running it very very well.”

According to Student Government Treasurer and Senior Alex Schapiro, about $1400 of the $5000 budget has been spent. Two committees have used or are planning to use Student Government money. “There’s not a lot of other committees that are using the Student Government funds, so it’s better that Senate is taking advantage of them than if they were just sitting away and not being used,” Schapiro said. “They’re not inhibiting anybody else using the budget.”

To keep students and delivery drivers safe, the Senate Heads choose for the orders to be left at the door of the student’s home. When the food is delivered, a Senate Head will text the student. “It reduces the interactions, and then definitely we try to tip very kindly and generously because we understand that people are putting themselves at risk for Senate food,” Moog said.

 “Senate is only useful if there are a lot of people who bring that diverse viewpoints,” Schapiro said. “And if we have to track people down by giving them food, okay because they usually do end up participating.”