GRESHAM, Ore. (KOIN) — Allie Olson was the senior class president at Gresham High School and a pitcher on their softball team. So she was involved in every activity that got canceled because of the pandemic.

But she wasn’t willing to let the accomplishments of the Class of 2020 go unacknowledged.

“I really like Gresham, everything about it. It’s hard to explain but once you’re here for awhile you’re, like, this is my home,” she told KOIN 6 News. “I was taking other people’s losses on, too, because, like, being on Student Council and being president and stuff I was, like, listening to all these other activities getting canceled, and my activity as I’m trying to plan get cancelled, and then softball on top of it. That was kind of my breaking point. It was so hard.”

Throwing fastballs and risers for the Gophers’ varsity team since she was a sophomore, Allie felt this year’s softball squad had been throught the fire together.

“I felt like we were already closer and then to kind of work through, we’ve got to practice in the gym all the time, we don’t have the best fields. Like, you kind of get close and you’re, like, ready to fight together,” she said. “I’m not a big, like, crier or anything but I shed a few tears. It was not fun.”

Then she sprang into action and coordinated virtual assemblies, with classmates sending videos of their team or performing their talent.

“It felt important to get people to not feel forgotten and give up,” she said. “To have these special things, like their sport or their activity or whatever, then to have that one thing that they’re really looking forward to be canceled, you just feel like you don’t want to try anymore, like you’re going to go to your online classes and you’re going to be, like, it’s pass-fail, I don’t care and I don’t know. I just didn’t want people to feel like it wasn’t worth it anymore.”

Allie’s determination to send her own seniors out in style kept them connected even when everythign was trying to keep them apart.

“We’re just trying to stay together and stay connected and I think we’ve done that job. I think we’ve kept people at least having content from us knowing they’re not forgotten. And that was kind of the goal.”