Meramec has more than 40 clubs to satisfy any ambitious freshman’s appetite at new student orientation or club days. If knitting strikes your fancy, there’s a club for that. If frisbee get your blood pumping, there’s a club for that. The following clubs have accomplished much within the last school year.
Kurt Oberreither
– News Editor –
The Outdoors Club is expanding and growing to reach new members and work with other clubs at Meramec.
“We’re just very diverse,” club President Abdul-Kariem Matteuzzi said. “In reality, the Outdoors Club is like six or eight clubs put in one.”
The club was revived by Matteuzzi and Saphia Madani after they arrived and realized there wasn’t a club at Meramec that focused on activities like backpacking, hiking and fishing. He said “there’s opportunity for every skill or background.”
“If you’ve never been camping before, there’s a place for you in the outdoors club,” Matteuzzi said.
One event the club participates in is the preservation of Don Robinson’s property, an 843-acre piece of land in northwestern Jefferson County, which will be named Missouri’s 51st state park.
“The [trip to the] Don Robinson property is an event that the Outdoors Club started and has grown to become this big service learning, community service trip that classrooms are starting to take part in,” Matteuzzi said. “It’s just blown up.”
For example, science departments are working on the property to protect species and habitats while photography students document the land’s development. This gives students hands-on field experience.
Matteuzzi said what sets the club apart is it’s student run. “If we don’t do the paperwork we don’t go,” club member Madani said. “The only thing the sponsor does is sign and we submit the paperwork.”
The club planned numerous trips from horseback riding to overnight campouts.
“The reason I like it so much is because I like to do the outdoors stuff. I like to fish, but a lot of times it’s hard to find other people that have similar interests. I think the outdoors group really brought a lot of people together that would normally have trouble finding each other,” Josh Lembeck, alumnus and club member, said.
