At 7 p.m. Oct. 8, Bosco Plaza was anything but a ghost town as students attended the Fall Fest, celebrating the turn of the season and the first-ever upcoming Pause Day. The free event featured pumpkin painting, wreath decorating, apple cider, a photo booth and more to give students a break from the stress of school through creative expression.
Trina Knight, sexual and relationship violence prevention specialist at the Morrison Family Center for Student Well-being, helped organize the event.
“October’s really tough,” Knight said. “People have a lot of midterms going on. It can be a really anxiety-inducing time of the year … so I hope that they just had this time to relax, to have fun and to be creative.”
The Morrison Family Center for Student Well-being and Union Program Council co-sponsored the event.
“[The Morrison Family Center] has kind of taken charge in running the Wildcat Pause Day and Pause Week activities,” Knight said. “We just thought it would be a really fun way for people to enjoy their well-being through art, expression and creativity and enjoying some tasty treats. And who doesn’t love a fall treat?”
Knight said she partnered with Jordan Fairchild, graduate student in human development and family science and UPC graduate assistant, to organize the event.
“We worked together to decide, you know, let’s have something that [students] can do, let’s have something that they can eat, let’s have something that they can take home with them,” Knight said. “We wanted to be able to bring those pumpkins in for them to paint because that’s always fun.
Pumpkin painting was so popular that the Fall Fest ran out of pumpkins within the first hour.
“They blew us out of the water … I’d say we anticipated maybe 300 [people], and I think that we have far surpassed that,” Knight said.
The UPC had some extra unused canvases in storage brought out for students after the pumpkins ran out.
Phoebe Shobe, a freshman in food science, attended Fall Fest with people from their dorm floor, who arrived before the pumpkins ran out.
“I enjoy painting a lot, so as soon as I saw that, I was like, ‘Yes, I’ll be there,’” Shobe said.
Shobe said if the event were to happen again, they would like better line management for the lines to the apple cider and snacks.
“The line to the caramel apples and the cider is the same line that goes past the table,” Shobe said. “So if you’ve already gone by the table but want apple cider … you’ll have to go by the table again to get it.”
