New Trier seniors held the 24th annual Winter Carnival on Feb. 23 at the Winnetka Campus. Carnival go-ers enjoyed games, activities, and food to raise money for the Habitat for Humanity project.

The Winter Carnival has always been a fundraising event, and this year was the 18th year that was dedicated to Habitat for Humanity. Later this spring, each advisery will take a trip to the construction site to work on building the house, using the funds made from the carnival.

Habitat for Humanity is an international, non-profit organization that aims to provide economical housing by selling  houses to its partner families with affordable, interest-free mortgages.

Credit for New Trier’s partnership with Habitat for Humanity goes to the class of 2001. They were the first class to hold a fundraiser and successfully raised $30,000. Since then, New Trier has built 33 houses and plans to build its 34th this spring.

Chris Pearson, Senior Boys’ Adviser Chair, acknowledged the hard work of this year’s seniors. “The Winter Carnival is all about the level of student engagement and participation, which happens naturally. This year was awesome and the class of 2018 did a great job.”

Susie Paunan, Senior Girls’ Adviser Chair, shared that “walking through the carnival, I saw everyone’s excitement. Everyone was engaged in the community. The class of 2018 had a very successful evening.”

Although some of the booths have already existed before, “each advisery tried to add to it and make it their own,” said Paunan.

Pearson shared that each year, the carnival is always different due to the new events that come up.

New booths this year included Glow in the Dark Musical Chairs and Guessing Games. One of the most popular booths was the Justin Bieber Room, where kids went to listen and dance to music, take photos with a Justin Bieber cut-out and get Bieber tattoos.

Another widely shared favorite was the Air Balloon Pump booth, where kids competed to see who could blow up a balloon the fastest.

The Bushell boys’ advisery organized a booth for kids to play Mario Kart on the Nintendo Switch. It was one of the most engaging booths at the Winter Carnival, and had a line out the door for majority of the night.

The Easton boys’ advisery held the Plinko booth. The game includes a chip that is dropped down a divided board with the goal of landing the chip in the area with the highest point value in order to earn prizes. The Plinko board was hand-built and painted by english teacher and senior adviser Paul Easton and his advisery. According to senior Tim Murtaugh of the Easton advisery, the Plinko booth was “mobbed” with grade-school children.

There were 45 booths this year, including 3-point basketball shootout, animal balloon workshop and toilet toss.

Senior Joe Levee was excited to participate in this year’s Winter Carnival because he used to go as a younger child himself. Levee worked with his classmates and adviser, Andrew Horne, at their 3-point basketball shootout booth.

Adviseries take responsibility to raise money for their booth. Some adviseries held bake sales or other fundraisers to raise money, while the rest set up their booths using student and adviser donations.

Overall, this year’s Winter Carnival was a success due to the creativity of the new booths, all the participating seniors’ fun energy and the excitement the carnival go-ers experienced.