Roses are red, violets are blue, Singing Valentines are back just in time for you! From teacher birthday celebrations to chorus concerts, the Green Hope Chorus is hard at work preparing this year’s Singing Valentines for the Green Hope student body with Valentine’s Day right around the corner.

Due to COVID-19, the program paused in the 2020-21 school year given the virtual learning circumstances, but it is finally back and ready to spread joy with the rest of the Falcons at Green Hope. 

Delaney Flanagan, a Senior Chorus student, is one of the many students involved in producing this year’s program. When asked about the Chorus program’s process for putting together Singing Valentines every year, she stated, “Once you’ve decided what song you want to sing, you learn the melody and create the harmonies and arrangements of the song whether that be an inclusion of altos or sopranos… then, you practice until you have it fully memorized.”

This year, the Green Hope Chorus students decided on the following songs:

• L.O.V.E. by Nat King Cole
• My Girl by The Temptations
• Just the Way You Are by Bruno Mars
• Baby by Justin Bieber

While compiling all of these songs is no simple feat, Green Hope’s Chorus students continue to put in all the work needed annually to produce Singing Valentines. Delaney additionally added that, “Finding arrangements that work for everyone… it’s a lot of trial and error. You could try something and it could be perfect, or you could try something and it would be terrible, so finding the balance is definitely the hardest part… But, it’s fun to go out and be like ‘we did it!’ with your individual group.”

Although the program wouldn’t be possible without the dedicated Chorus members, Mr. Allen Botwick, the third year Chorus Program Director at Green Hope, also plays a massive role in ensuring his students to produce the most up to par program possible. He stated, “Singing Valentines enables students to make their own choral arrangements and get the Arts out into the school… Sometimes, we’re out in the back corner of the school and we aren’t seen all the time, but it’s a great way to say ‘Hey, Green Hope! The Arts are here!’”

As a smaller program at Green Hope, the school’s Chorus utilizes fundraising activities, such as Singing Valentines, to purchase choral sheet music and other necessary resources to help the program continue. 

But, the impact of the Program doesn’t end in the Fine Arts hallway. 

Sonali Sehgal, a Senior at Green Hope High School, stated that her favorite part about being able to buy Singing Valentines is “being able to see my friends’ reactions, show them that I care, and watch them laugh while they receive it.”

In the words of Mr. Botwick, “Every student at Green Hope deserves to know where they belong whether that’s in sports, chorus, robotics, or journalism, and the Fine Arts program at Green Hope provides that to our students.” Here at Green Hope, the enablement of the student body to explore various pathways of creativity and expression is ultimately what drives the school’s excellence.

The Chorus Program’s contribution to this creativity and expression not only encourages other students to discover their passions, but it also emphasizes the importance of sharing that passion with the rest of the building, especially on holidays like Valentine’s Day.

We wish you all a Happy Valentine’s Day, and we hope yours is filled with loads of Singing Valentines and kindness!

XOXO,

The Green Hope Falcon