By Lesther Salapunen

By Reanna Cornejo

In a classroom somewhere in the Ateneo Senior High School (ASHS), forty-something heads are bent over laptops, concept sheets, color palettes, logos, and timelines. Someone is arguing passionately about the smallest details that most of the student body will never notice: a name for a sponsorship package, a logo adjustment that perhaps only 2% of students will pay attention to, the precise number of people needed to block the background of a promo video.

In that same bright classroom, where the air is thick with ideas, joy is being engineered. Carefully. Lovingly. Systematically. Welcome to the Fair Committee: architects of fun, engineers of hype, and the quiet, hard working hands behind one of the most awaited days of the school year. Long before the stands glow against January skies and long before the first student queues at a booth, a small army of people have already begun constructing the blueprints for joy.

The Irony of Fun

There’s an unspoken rule to event organizing: to make sure everyone else has fun, someone else has to give theirs up first. 

The Fair’s Overall Head, Neo Monterola, knows this very well. He says the hardest part isn’t a single drama-filled moment but the time. The sheer, unforgiving time it takes to oversee administrative sectors and multiple departments and their subsectors. The meetings he must attend even when it takes a toll on his academics. His experiences from previous JHS events softened the initial shock of the heavy workload, but it never removes the sacrifices. “It’s taken a toll on my academics,” he admits. “But I’m someone who wants to be there as much as possible to check over everyone. Even beyond fair-related work, I try to open myself up to them.” As head of the entire Fair Committee, he tries his best to keep meetings lively and warm, because he believes a committee only functions when people feel safe inside it. He checks on everyone in the various departments as much as he can, even if that means missing out on his own rest time and even when deadlines stack up like uncollected papers on a desk. 

Across the fair’s different committees — Finance, Accounting, Concessionaires, Marketing, Promotions, Sponsorships, Creatives, Graphics and Visual Effects, Decorations, Logistics, Mini Events, Rides, Security, Special Events — the same sentiment is echoed: joy takes work. For Joannsen David, head of the Sponsorships Committee, that struggle comes with mass-sending emails until the late hours and responding to emails and requests daily, as those don’t follow a fixed student schedule. It’s become a workload that grows in every message she answers that births two more that need attention.

From the world of email threads to maps and measurements, the workload doesn’t falter. Because for the Logistics Committee, led by Alleah Ortega, the hardest part is the precision. Ortega notes the difficulty in how every reservation processed through CFMO must be exact, every booth measurement must be correct, and every plan must be timely. They cannot afford mistakes because small mistakes ripple into big safety issues. And yet what surprises her is how each little decision eventually locks into place like a bunch of puzzle pieces, creating smoothness where there could have been chaos.

And once the groundwork has been put in place, someone has to make it look effortless. Co-head Anton Balagtas describes the Promotions Committee’s behind-the-scenes work as “creative, collaborative, and chaotic in the best way.” The committee shapes what the rest of the ASHS sees, and that comes with its own kind of pressure. Balagtas says the committee has to follow strict timelines and necessary coordination with every other department to ensure branding stays consistent. One unreleased draft can ruin a rollout; one careless click can send the entire promotions team spiraling. Their fun is a system: layers of approval processes, meetings, edits, checks. Promos works on the Fair’s brand months before anyone even hears a whisper.

The other committees work just as tirelessly — there are the meticulous minds in Finance and Accounting who make sure to track every peso, the Concessionaires Committee that bring the Fair’s character and flavor with the stalls and booths they secure, the Marketing team who crafts stories that draw the ASHS in, the worldbuilders of the Creatives, Graphics, Visual Effects, and Decorations Committees who turn bare spaces into bright experiences. The work is demanding, but it’s the resilience and dedication to continue despite it that stitches every committee member together. 

Blueprints for Joy

If the fair is a city, then every committee is a department of urban planning, where each shapes a different part of the fair experience, all responsible for a different yet equally essential system. It takes dozens and dozens of people to build two days of joy.

The Sponsorships Committee is the lifeblood of the fair — the people who ensure that funds, resources, and partnerships flow smoothly long before January comes around. Their head, Joannsen David, talks about how naming sponsorship packages has taken hours of her life, even though most fairgoers won’t even know. But to her, names make sponsors feel valued, humanized, and more than just financial contributors. Day after day, David and the committee members navigate the volume of tasks: emails that require prompt replies, coordination for funds, necessary support for other committees. Money, she says, is what allows the entire blueprint of fun to run smoothly. To the committee, sponsorships do far more than just finance — they provide momentum for every other department.

And once that momentum is secured, another committee has to make sure it translates into an experience that actually works on the ground. The Logistics Committee’s role is simple but essential: to make sure that when the fair opens, all anyone has to think about is fun. As the committee’s head, Alleah Ortega, puts it: “it’s our job to worry so nobody else has to.” The Committee debates things most students will never notice — how close rides can stand to the driveway, where the grass is soft enough or too soft, how big concessionaire booths should be, what angles prevent bottlenecking, which placement prevents accidents. These are details that, if ignored, could lead to real danger, so the entire team pores over them again and again and again.

If Logistics is the backbone of the fair, Promotions is the face. If the fair were a movie, they would be the cinematographers, editors, and storytellers, all rolled into one team. They sculpt the fair’s whole identity: its colors, its voice, its brand. All content they put out must be clean, consistent, and true to Ateneo’s values. As Balagtas, the co-head, explains: “taking responsibility for what the school sees is part of being people-for-and-with-others.” A person-for-and-with-others must also be responsible for-and-with the audience, and so the entire committee has to be clear, honest, and considerate in every caption and post. 

The ASHS Fair is not just an event, but a creation for the community, by a community. A love letter written in floor plans, sponsorship pitches, videos, emails, meetings, and sleepless nights. Every email sent, every pubmat polished, every logistics sheet filled out is a small offering to the larger ASHS — an act of being persons for and with others. 

Project Community

But what do you get when you strip away the tarpaulins, booths, promo videos, and all the spectacle and noise that often comes with a school fair? What remains is something quietly remarkable and far more enduring: the spirit of community. Past the logistics and the long nights, the Fair Committee’s work is a testament to collaboration, patience, and the belief that joy is worth the effort. It is the understanding that creating happiness for others is a profound act of leadership — one that asks each committee member to step outside themselves and build something that makes someone else feel safe, seen, and alive.

The fair is a world crafted not just for fun, but for purpose. As the Overall Head, Neo Monterola believes this year’s theme, “Siklo,” centers on the Ateneo spirit of ‘Lux in Domino’ or ‘Light in the Lord’ itself — where the Fair is a space and moment in time where students are rediscovering that light together. In this rediscovery lies Christ-centeredness; in the reminder that service can be an expression of faith. “It’s compassion lived out collectively, as it’s a fundraiser for our scholars, and I think the 5Cs are all present in this one project,” Monterola says. Compassion is the reason for every peso raised. The fair runs smoothly because of the competence and commitment exemplified in every late meeting, where consciousness becomes the guide for deciding what the ASHS actually needs. And Christ-centeredness is threaded through them all, grounding the Fair into an expression of shared light. 

The Fair is a promise to create something bigger than any one committee, any one department, any one student. It’s easy to see it as simply two days of lights and sounds, but behind it is a year’s worth of choosing to serve, again and again, all so that joy can take shape for everyone to share.

When January 30 Comes

“Siklo” is a reminder of cycles — of giving and receiving, of work and celebration, of offering and gratitude. When the morning of January 30 inevitably dawns, sunlight will drape itself softly across the ASHS Fields with booths warming awake, and there will be anticipation in the air mixing with the smell of food heating in concessionaire tents. It’ll be a day where the entire school feels weightless, because a dedicated few carried all the weight for them. 

And for the Fair Committee, it’ll be months of hidden labor crystallizing into two bright, beautiful days. They’ll stand somewhere in that sea of joy: tired, relieved, and proud. As the Sponsorships Head, Joannsen David, put it: “The Fair is the fruit of months and months of hard work — but it’s also a labor of love, and every one in the committee has put their whole heart, blood, sweat, and tears into it.”

The Logistics Team will subtly scan the grounds, knowing every booth stands where it should because they planned and placed it there. The Sponsorships head may wipe tears as the world she built through emails and meetings becomes real. The Promotions Committee will watch students take photos against backdrops they pored over. And the Fair Committee’s Overall Head will breathe, whispering to himself: “Tapos na. Nandito na. We made this,” — an acknowledgment of every effort made, every challenge overcome, every small act of service that built this Fair. The cycle completes: of giving and receiving, of work and celebration, of offering and gratitude. The Fair will stand as proof that, together, a community can create light and share it with everyone who steps inside.