The cry, “We have souls!” echoes from the mouths of proud redheaded students in room 116.
It is the final line of the Ginger Club’s pledge, which marks the start of their lunchtime meetings. To some, quirky traditions like this might make the Ginger Club come across as a joke.
“I think a problem is just the name,” said club member Ian Morrison. “People say, ‘Can I join?’ but are not serious.”
The Ginger Club was inspired by SGA treasurer Cole Ahnell’s entrance in this year’s homecoming movie where, seated in a sparsely lit room, he chanted the Ginger Pledge with other redheaded students. The club began about two weeks later.
“Gingers are kind of made fun of and we’ve never had a group where we could band together,” said club President Jacob Karlin. “It seemed like a pretty fun thing.”
Yet this relatively new club already has a number of plans. The selling of Ginger grams in December, delivered by ‘real live gingers,’ was the group’s first fundraiser. Currently, they are selling Ginger Club T-shirts. In the spring, the club will use the money generated from their ventures to start a fundraiser to raise money for skin cancer research.
However, the Ginger Club is not only focused on raising money.
“The main purpose of our club is to be a place that all gingers can get together and be themselves and to have a good time and to have fun at school,” said Karlin.
Morrison similarly views the Ginger Club as enjoyable and stress-free.
“It’s kind of a loose meeting and it’s fun and relaxed,” he said. “People should join.”
The club hopes to reach out to the many redheads who are unaware of the club or just hesitant to join. Right now, the club runs announcements on the Daily Lineup, hangs funny fundraising flyers in the halls and has a Facebook group that anyone can join. Yet Morrison anticipates that the upcoming T-shirt sales and other serious fundraisers will make more students interested in the club.
Is this a ridiculous idea for a club? Maybe not — gingers actually are very rare, and might just deserve to have their own society. After all, according to National Geographic, less than two percent of the world’s population is redheaded. Gingers also share a number of distinct characteristics. It is already a well-known fact that the redheaded population is more likely to burn in the sun, but studies have shown that they are also more sensitive to pain, require larger doses of anesthesia, and produce more Vitamin D than people without red hair.
Regardless of all these shared characteristics and although some think this club comes across as an exclusive society, gingers are actually not very different from other people. Also, non-gingers are always invited to join this club, to get to know gingers better and to help the gingers help the community.
