Sarah Shelton – Features Editor
Two events, one day and a lot of opportunities for residents was available on Saturday, April 2 for the university’s Resident Appreciation Day.
The first event, just being Resident Appreciation Day was, according to Owlconnect, “Join RHA to celebrate YOU! The residential community would not be the same without the residents, so we want to take a moment to celebrate the community. Featuring FREE Laundry for 24 hours!”
Resident Hall Association, RHA, hosts this day for students to do their laundry for free every year.
“Just swipe your hoot loot and it should just start for free,” West Campus Resident Advisor Allison VanDerlyn said at a floor meeting for the second-floor residents.
VanDerlyn warned students that the laundry room will be full during the day because of this, so suggested doing it very early in the morning or late at night.
When doing laundry on campus, students will put money on their Hoot Loot cards, load their clothes into the washer, walk over to the swipe box machine to pay for the wash, put in the number located on their washer and then they are able to start the machine. On Saturday, the cards did not even have to be swiped to start the process.
The next event listed on Owlconnect was, “Resident Appreciation Day – Discovery Day.”
According to the website, “For residence appreciation day RHA will be having a carnival-style event in the residential quad. We will be having games, food, prizes, and other activities for the residential students. Upon sign-in, students will receive a complimentary tote bag and be told how they can accumulate tickets to win and choose prizes. The more they participate the more tickets they can get.”
While this event was going on, the university was also hosting “Admitted Students Day,” and the incoming freshmen also got to participate in the carnival event, they just could not sign in for the complimentary items, an RHA tote bag, and T-shirt.
“I heard a lot of residents saying that they love the carnival-style events that they’ve seen around campus, so we figured we could kind of bring it back but in a different way or with some different vibes,” RHA Vice President Siddhi Suresh said. “So we decided to run some carnival games from one of our vendors and then set up a few stations for people to get some tickets to win prizes.”
The event had two “Minute-to-Win-it” stations, a ring toss, and knocking down blocks. Students were able to gather tickets by playing these games as many times as they wanted.
“If you participate at any of the four stations that we have set up you get one ticket for participation. Then, if you successfully attempt the game, and win you get another ticket. We have a variety of different prizes. We have some key chains, some slap bands, you know, things that you would typically find on a carnival, and then you everything has like a number of tickets that you can redeem it for,” Suresh said.
Sociology major Gianna Rubino, a freshman, said she came to the event to play the games, which she loved, and to hang out with friends.
“I’m happy,” Rubino said. “I love free shirts.”
