J’Mari Hughes—Reporter
Southern’s Programs Council hosted a game of “Let’s Make a Deal” on Tuesday, April 9. Unlike the TV show, students did not dress up in crazy costumes and win new cars or Hawaiian vacations, instead they awaited their names being drawn from a box and were given prizes such as gift cards, scooters and Echo Dots.
“We wanted to do [the event] on a smaller, college campus scale,” said senior ProCon nighttime programmer Kayleigh Paskiewicz. “It’s a chill night and we figured, with the semester winding down, it’s a nice way to come out, not worry about school and hang out with your friends and get free food.”
Like the show, students had the unfortunate opportunity of getting a “zonk,” an item purposely lousy in comparison to others, including a unicorn doll and a jar of Fluff, or in some cases, nothing at all.
Azhane Mitchell, who guessed the song “Shook Ones” by Mobb Deep correctly and was able to participate, received the marshmallow fluff while she unhappily said she would have preferred the AirPods. Mitchell, a junior special education major, said she likes that people come to nighttime events, rather than spending all night in their dorm.
As well as pulling names from a box to determine who gets to play, Associate Director of Student Involvement Eric Lacharity chose players based on quick contests, such as asking who was the most excited in the room, who had an Android phone, who could find an Instagram cat the fastest or who had a Stop and Shop rewards card with them. Students would be narrowed down with games of “Simon Says,” “Rock, Paper, Scissors” or “I’m Thinking of a Number Between.”
Questions within the game were asked categorically, with topics including Disney, sports and SCSU. “How many bones are in the human body?” “What was the first animated Disney film?” and “What city is Dunder Mifflin located?” were only a few of the endless trivia questions.
“I came here because I heard they were giving out good prizes and I have pretty good luck at stuff,” said freshman communications major Ramsley Exantus, who won a Sony extra bass speaker. “It’s pretty fair we all get a chance to win something.”
Paskiewicz, a junior, journalism major, said ProCon uses money from student’s activity fees to put towards buying the prizes. It is a way, she said, of giving back to the students and allows ProCon to hosts events in addition to “Let’s Make a Deal”, such as PB&J Thursdays and Student Appreciation Week.
“We try to do give a lot of free food, but we try to keep things different,” said senior, interdisciplinary studies major Erich Bender. “Last year we did ‘The Price is Right.’ We try to keep it nice and varied.”
According to freshman communication major Matthew Berry, ProCon tends to keep the activities one of a kind and does not typically duplicate events. He said ProCon, which meets Mondays at 1 p.m. in the Student Center, is a place for students to relax, take their minds of work and tests and have a good time.
“We want to show they’re appreciated and let them know we have usually two events a week,” said Paskiewicz. “We just want to reward them with the prizes for all their hard work this semester.”
