Students from Newtown High School’s College Application Prep (CAP) Club visited Newtown Middle School on Thursday, January 30 to encourage students to start thinking about their futures.

NHS CAP Club members set up 14 different booths at the back of the cafeteria during lunch, with each one highlighting a different elective offered at the high school. Middle school students could learn about a wide variety of electives, from fine arts, journalism, and architecture, to biomed, baking and pastry, and introduction to engineering design.

Each booth was run by one or more NHS CAP Club students and featured a poster board they made with information, graphics, and photos to best represent their elective.

According to NHS junior and CAP Club President Claire DiNoto, the event is an extension of the club’s mission to have people start thinking about the college application process early. She said that applying to college can be really overwhelming for a lot of people, especially as they approach senior year with harder classes and more responsibilities.

“So I think that, by starting to think about your goals a little earlier, the whole college application process can become less stressful,” DiNoto continued.

The club’s special visit to the middle school has been a work in progress for many months. NMS school counselor Tina Broccolo said that the NHS CAP Club originally reached out around September or October to coordinate setting up the event together.

This was only one of many activities set up to help middle school students prepare for their future, as Broccolo said there was also a welcoming evening at the high school, a lesson from the eighth grade counselors on preparing for elective choices, and more.

Broccolo added that having the booth event, which was led by NHS CAP Club members, falling in the middle of all those activities would help middle school students get “as much information as possible.

“It’s really been driven by them,” Broccolo said. “They did such a wonderful job.”

For DiNoto, she said it felt nice as the club’s president to have an idea and watch it come to life. However, the booth event is just one of the club’s many recent endeavors. DiNoto said that the NHS CAP Club recently held a raffle to fundraise money for their own scholarship.

While they are still ironing out the scholarship’s name, DiNoto said that it would go to a senior student this spring who exemplifies talent and community involvement. DiNoto also stressed that they don’t want the scholarship to be about GPA.

To her and the other members of the club, the scholarship will be another way for them to support current and future students, and to give back to their local community.

Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.