Graphic by Leah Han ’27/The Choate News
By Bella Welch ’26, Staff Reporter
At the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year, student club leaders were informed that the Student Committee on Programming and Engagement (SCOPE) would no longer allocate a set budget to each club. “[For] the past 2 years, we have taken a portion of the SCOPE budget to allocate $200 to each club,” Assistant Director of Student Activities Ms. Colleen Kazar said. “The SCOPE budget does not replenish each year. It is built only by fundraising, and we have not hosted a fundraiser in the past few years, so the pool of money is simply smaller.” Thus, due to the smaller SCOPE budget, SCOPE is not able to financially support individual clubs with a lump sum this year.
As a result, club leaders must now submit a request for funding whenever they need financial assistance from the Student Activities Center (SAC), specifying the amount needed and a justification for the expense. While the SAC is willing to cover the cost of food for one meeting per club each year, any additional costs for food at club meetings will need to be covered by the clubs themselves.
Due to the limited funding, club leaders can resort to alternative methods of raising money for their clubs. To support expenses like food, trips, or other activities, clubs can organize fundraisers or have members work in the Call Center, reaching out to alumni for contributions to the annual fund.
The SAC hopes that this change will be temporary and that more funding for clubs will return. “[Director of Student Activities] Ms. [Alex] Long and I are looking into ways that we can increase the budget for next year so that hopefully, we can allocate more funding,” Ms. Kazar said.
