This year, the class of ‘26 held its first Candy-Cane Delights Sale for the holidays. This sale is a “winter twist on a candy gram,” as they said on their Instagram. From December 6th through the 15th during all lunches, student council members will be selling candy canes with a handwritten note of the person’s choice, for two dollars—something “cute, cheap, and heartfelt,” social media coordinator Sarah Fontaim said.
“We wanted to help connect the students of Malden High School with their peers and class officers and allow for them to grow healthy relationships with one another over this winter season,” Eldana “Eldu” Abrhame, the class of 2026 president, stated.
This event is not only an important part of Malden High School’s tradition, but it has “a special twist on it to personalize the co’26 and all the hard work that is circulating throughout our school spirit,” Abrhame continued.
“Candy grams are candy canes that you can buy for your friends or lovers to give them. They can be anonymous or signed. It's a way to give your friends something cute and thoughtful for a cheap price. The notes were added as it's always nice to get a cute note from someone. Words can mean a lot to a person, so just writing a note for two seconds could make someone's day,” Rashmi KC, the vice president, explained.
Everyone in the student council played a part in hosting this event, but art director Mailee To had the idea of selling candy canes, and Linh Do, one of the event coordinators, brought up the idea of adding little notes to each one.
“Bake sales are super common to come by in MHS, especially during seasonal holidays,” To said. “But I know that Candy Grams for Halloween was super successful for the juniors prior in October, and because the ‘26 class didn’t have any winter events coming up, a spin-off of Candy Grams seemed like a fun idea to do!”
“We were inspired by the Halloween candy grams. I personally bought one for a friend and someone bought one for me. Seeing a little bag of candy with a note with my name on it made my day,” Do stated.
The student council is attempting to convince more and more students to buy a candy cane with a personalized note on it for a friend, lover, teacher, or just anyone they appreciate.
“I’m using psychology to get into their heads so that they’ll buy them and I just use my multi-language level skills to persuade them,” Fontaim said jokingly.
Along with asking around to see if anyone would like to purchase a candy cane, the student council has posted an Instagram post with all the information on it, and they’ve also put posters around the school to spread the word. “After they see how the notes work and that they are able to send it to someone special, people tend to stop and at least take interest upon purchasing one,” KC explained.
The candy distribution will be happening on December 18th. Once a candy is bought by a student, it’s given to the recipient during homeroom. “Once all this is completed, the student council will ensure that every student receives their candy gram during homeroom,” Abrhame said.
Overall, planning this event has gone pretty well for the student council, but they came across a few bumps while trying to make everything work smoothly.
“Though we just started selling the candy canes, I think our main issue right now is getting the word out there which through social media we have been able to solve,” KC stated. “Another issue is at the lunch tables some people aren’t able to stay so instead, we also have student council members selling individually so anyone is able to come up and grab them from any stucco members.”
However, Abrhame emphasized the student councils’ perseverance through challenges. “Although there were many obstacles while planning this event, such as other classes having similar ideas and difficulty including all of the members' ideas into this event; we have managed to persevere through these challenges by remembering the purpose of our event and the smiles that will be on students faced regardless of the issues we may have surpassed.” She finally complimented the class of ‘26 student council for going further to “demonstrate our strong team and admiration we have for each other while also getting so much done within such a small amount of time.”
“We just hope that it brings up the festive spirit of this holiday season as Christmas is approaching. And who doesn’t like candy canes?” Do said.
The student council strives to be able to get more funding so that they can afford the costs of future events and to just get more publicity for their class. Their overall goal is to get more students involved.
“A lot of the students at Malden High, especially those in our class, are not as engaged as we wish and we want to make original, high-quality, memorable events for them and every class currently before and after us!” To finished.
