This week, Amador Valley High School celebrated Donversity Week, an Amador tradition that celebrates diversity on campus. The week featured fun lunchtime activities, culminating in the annual Donversity Rally. Each year, Donversity leads pick specific themes to highlight during the week, as well as lunchtime and ACCESS activities, such as a wheelchair obstacle course on Monday, and a Student Cultures Map on Tuesday. For the 2025 Donversity Week, the theme was collective impact.
“It was voted on by a lot of different groups on campus. Collective impact is basically saying how everyone at Amador makes an impact of the school, and to remind people that, even though we might be doing other people by a small thing at the end of the day, we’re all the same because we all collectively make it impact to the school.” said Social Media Committee Lead Eva Carranza (24).
In addition to the overall theme and daily activities, a time-honored Donversity tradition is the Donversity ACCESS game, where students play trivia games in an effort to bond with their peers and celebrate their similarities and differences.
“My favorite part of the [Donversity] week activities are, first, the game. I love watching the kids get to know each other. They always start where they’re kind of too cool to play, but then they have a really good time playing,” said Leadership Advisor Wendy Connelly.
Impact By All
A new addition this year was a roundtable panel led by social and emotional program developer Faith Alpher, featuring input from Amador students about the culture of kindness at Amador Valley.
“Honestly, I felt a little emotional [during the panel]. I want kids to be themselves; we have a lot of people who are negative. If you just exercise a little bit of kindness, it’s easier to be kind instead of being ugly and nasty to someone.” said Alpher.
Alpher also spoke to students at the beginning of the Donversity rally on Friday, with a motivational speech to students that likened the Amador community to a puzzle where every piece is important, blasting “Thank You for Letting me Be Myself” by Sly and the Family Stone, and tossing candy into the crowd.
Donversity Week originally started as a district-wide tradition before it was adapted and evolved into what it is today. Students agree that it has a special space in their hearts.
“I think it’s really different from all the other rallies because it’s celebrating our whole week. Honestly, most schools don’t have this, especially in the Bay Area, even though we’re so diverse. I think Amador is really able to encapsulate our diversity in this one week, and just what it means to be a Don; bringing your own culture, but also your clubs culture and your friends, and being able to show it off to the whole school in an inclusive environment.” said Donversity Planning Lead Jiya Channon (26).
