Being part of a community means more than just living in the area. It also means helping out families, friends and neighbors in times of need. 

In light of ICE raids happening both close to home and across the country, Whistlemania, an event to package whistle kits, was hosted on Friday, April 24th, in the Alisal cafeteria. 

Organized after school from 4 pm to 5 pm, volunteers were given whistles, zines detailing the different whistles and what they mean, Know Your Rights cards, and yellow cards with information about what to do and who to report to if they spot ICE. 

In preparation for the event hosted on Friday, volunteers received training on Wednesday, April 22nd, so they could facilitate the kit making process and help other volunteers should they need it. 

The training was hosted in ethnic studies teacher Gloria Estrada’s classroom during lunch. Volunteers quickly filled up the seats and listened attentively to Candy McCarthy’s instructions so by Friday they would know what to do. “I guess preparing ourselves mentally for what was going to happen on Friday kind of helped with all the people showing up on Friday,” junior Chris Alvarez said. 

Though this is the first time Alisal has hosted the event, it was not the first time Whistlemania was held at a high school in the district. “The Board gave me permission to speak with each principal about hosting a Whistlemania,” McCarthy said. “To date Salinas High and Washington Middle School, Rancho San Juan High, Everett Alvarez High, and Alisal High have hosted Whistlemanias. All middle schools have been invited to participate. 6,300 whistle kits have been made.”

The event is actually part of Indivisible, an organization with the primary goal of stopping authoritarianism and putting the power of democracy back into the hands of the people, not politicians. 

Bringing Whistelamania to Alisal was a team effort. “We did it [Whistlemania] out in the community with Indivisible,” Estrada said. “They asked if we had students that could help put some whistles together.” Hosting the event here was just one part in a larger scale goal. “Mrs. McCarthy spoke to the board about the event,” she said. “And then the board decided they wanted a Whistlemania event at every school.”

Prior to the event on Friday, Estrada hosted a few kit making events after school in her classroom. The only difference being that those kits were for the citywide event. In preparation for Alisal’s event, AP biology teacher Rebecca Ward and health teacher Uriel Gutierrez, did their part by creating whistles with their 3D printers. “I think I printed them straight for two weeks,” Gutierrez said. “Two kilograms [of filament] were used.” 

To make Whistlemania possible, it required the help of different groups and people. From donors to staff and students in the form of volunteers, Whistlemania was far from a solo project. “It’s a whole big team,” Estrada said. “We got a lot of support, LULAC donated money towards creating them [whistles].” 

When the day arrived, volunteers were ready to meet the goal of 2,000 kits. Just before the event began, Estrada gathered up all the volunteers who chose to be table leaders and gave them a final run down of how to assemble a kit and help out other volunteers. Table leaders wore neon yellow construction vests so that other volunteers knew who to look for. 

Quickly enough, the tables in the cafeteria filled up substantially with volunteers. They sorted the big piles of zines, cards, and whistles, into even bigger piles of kits. Music, thanks to table leader Chris Alvarez, played to hype up the volunteers and keep them going. Snacks were provided for volunteers and they received community service hours for their work. “I got to be with some of my friends,” junior Maryfer Calderon said. “So that was pretty fun.” 

The only thing missing was proper organization for all the kits. Overwhelmed with the number of kits, table leaders had to figure out where to store all of them and sort them by what each kit had. There were not enough yellow cards for all of the kits so they had to separate the kits without yellow cards from the ones containing the yellow cards. “It was lowkey kind of stressful,” Alvarez said. “I think a lot of people showed up, maybe more than was expected.”

But in the end, all the kits were made and few left over materials remained. Though the event was a fun way to gain community service hours, on a much broader scale, it’s important to note the importance of an event like Whistlemania. Since the event, the kits have been allocated out in the community. “Whistle kits have been distributed to the Salinas Elementary School District, AFL-CIO, SEIU, Salinas Valley Heath Clinics, and various churches in addition to all the kits which have been distributed neighbor to neighbor,” McCarthy said. “Whistlemanias are a tool for building communities and for empowering people.”

Not only does Whistlemania provide our community with important information, it also reassures our immigrant population that we support them and have their backs. It’s about doing our part to make our community a little bit safer so that not only do we get to enjoy our home, but others do too. “I think it’s definitely important to help out our community because it’s where we live,” sophomore Jairo Montoya said. “If you want to see change for the better, then it’s us who has to make that decision first, rather than waiting around for other people to do it for us.” 

As far as future Whistlemania events, it’s possible that Alisal hosts another one, given the success the first one saw. Though it may take some time before Alisal hosts another, there should be other Whistlemania events happening at other schools and in the community.