It’s the start of another school year and there is a new class of seniors, as well as a new class of freshmen.

Freshman Melody Brady said she was “really anxious at first” about her first day of high school.

After realizing it for themselves just three years earlier, a group of 40+ senior girls decided to help make the lives of freshmen a little bit easier.

Senior Ashlie Campbell said, “We thought it would be a good opportunity for the senior girls to reach out to the freshman girls and to welcome them to Bob Jones.”

Ashlie, and another senior, Becca Fraley, helped organize the BJ Girls Senior GroupMe and assign seniors a “little.”

Before the school year started, any willing freshman girl (the little) had the opportunity to be paired with a senior girl (the big) to be able to turn to for advice.

After meeting her big, senior Maddy Thomas, Melody said that she was now “super excited” about going to Bob Jones.

“The main thing is we [the senior girls] were putting ourselves in their [the freshman girls] shoes. What did we want when we were freshmen?” Ashlie said. “I texted my little the night before school started and was like ‘do you have any questions? text me tomorrow if you need anything or are confused, text me,’ because I know that would help.”

Usually only sororities have a big and a little, but Becca said, “When I think of sorority I am thinking you have to be accepted into it and I really want this to be something anybody can participate in, from any part of school – if you’re in theatre, band, whatever you’re in, you’re welcome to join us. I don’t want it to be a closed group of 20 popular people who do it, it should be everyone being able to participate.”

The first event involving the bigs and the littles was “Freshman Friday”, where the seniors wore all black and the freshman wore baby clothes and all white.

“Wednesday of the first week me and my friends took our littles out to breakfast and we sat down and talked and got to know them better,” Ashlie said. “Friday we picked them up and then we all met in the parking lot and took pictures and talked and it was just girls being girls. That was my favorite because I felt like our littles were having fun and we were having fun.”

Along with setting up Freshman Friday, the freshmen and senior girls want to do after school activities, like going to Shakalaka.

Becca said, “I remember being a freshman and I was really intimidated, so hopefully this can be something where if they see a senior girl they’re more comfortable around them, and that these relationships are building so they can find Bob Jones as an easier place to be and to navigate with some help.”

Along with organizing Freshman Friday, Becca, Ashlie, and the rest of the senior girls group want to organize events for the class of 2018.

The afternoon before school started, the group drew with chalk on the parking spot they planned to park in for the rest of the year, writing phrases such as “don’t kill our v18be” and “all or noth1n8”.

“My sisters graduated from Bob Jones in 2008 and 2009 and I remember when I was little watching their student section and watching them do different activities,” Becca said. “They had so much being together and I think it’s really important as leadership at this school to be on the same field of opinion on the stuff we want to do as a class and a school.”

While there are no other plans at the moment, the Bob Jones Senior Girls are already off to a great start of the 2017-2018 school year.