Grapes, strawberries, mangoes, oranges and peaches. These are just some fruits that Smoothie Club board members use when making their free smoothies for their club members. The club promotes a healthy lifestyle and encourages a diet of fruit to individuals through their neo-transcendental ideals.

“One day my friends and I decided we wanted to become one with fruit and attain inner peace, like Siddhartha Gautama once did by meditating 50 days and 50 nights under a Bodhi tree,” senior and president Daniel Lomboy said. “We made this club as a joke initially but it ended up getting really big, and I’m pretty impressed how far we’ve come.”

Now during the club meetings which are held every month, the board members bring blenders, frozen fruit, yogurt and juice to make smoothies, which is then handed out to club members. The board members occasionally dress up as fruits for entertainment and start out their club with their anthem, “We’re the Club of Smoothies,” which Lomboy composed with club secretary Eric Kim, along with the secretary of music Noah Pacis.

The board members are planning to open a new chapter in a different IUSD high school next year. Recently, they have been implementing philosophical ideas to evolve the club from its humorous associations to a club that has more serious intentions.

“The club embodies a neo-transcendental motif which strives to not just foster individualism but also, and quite on the contrary, underscore the value in  conformity in a group effort by creating such a supportive community,” vice president and senior Jonathan Moon said. “Yes, one of the many things we do is making smoothies at our meetings, but it serves to show the value of how the individual merit of a fruit can be married with that of another to create an ulterior and far superior amalgam that transcends the merit of individuals through the glorified smoothie.”

The club’s main purpose is to bond with students from different backgrounds and to become friends through fun activities, such as making smoothies. Their set theme of “fruit” and jokingly shunning vegetables adds on to the humor of the club, attracting more and more members every meeting.