By Anna Rose Canzano, MOCAD

Here at the MOCAD Teen council, we are learning what it takes to plan an event. We came up with an idea for our first event: a teen night “icebreaker” for Detroit-area high school students. It will be centered around a big blank wall on which guests can draw and paint, and there will be a DJ, dancing, and food. After we settled on the idea, we moved on to the details. What kind of music should the DJ play? Where do get food? Can we have black lights? Sadly, the museum staff shot down the black light idea because the room is not dark enough. At one meeting, a group of council members planned out decorations and lighting in detail with the help of Leto, the museum’s special events coordinator. Meanwhile, another group of council members learned about social media etiquette.

The event was originally scheduled for January 31, 2014. We rushed to settle the details, like paint pens and decorations, but then the cold and the snow hit. With all of the school closings, we had to postpone the icebreaker. And then it snowed. It snowed a lot. We have had to cancel a few meetings, but we are still working hard to finalize our plans, and we are coming up with ideas for the future. For our second teen night we are planning on hosting a double feature movie night, and we are thinking about putting on a Teen Monster Drawing Rally for our third event.

Now we are having the icebreaker February 21^st, from 6-9:30 at the museum. Right now we are spreading the word about the icebreaker and we are brainstorming places where we can put up our newly redesigned (and colorful) flyers.