Get Involved Fair

One of the annual events at Stockton University is the Get Involved Fair which was on the 19th and 20th of September this year. The fair is located in the main campus building with tables set up, all the way from B –wing continuing through most of the main campus building. The purpose of the Get Involved Fair is to not only encourage the new freshman and transfers, but also previous year students at Stockton University to join and get involved in all that Stockton University has to offer. There are various things to get involved in such as sororities and fraternities, all different types of clubs, and even volunteer activities. Essentially, it is said that there is something for everyone; you just have to find that something at this fair. The convenience of the Get Involved Fair is that you have access to meeting up with almost every organization in Stockton just to get their perspective and mission of the organization before making the decision of joining the organization and they are all located in one convenient location, the main campus center. Since it is in the convenient location, the main campus center, the Get Involved Fair is not only hard to miss due to the buzzing energy, but it is also hard to avoid if you are in the main campus center, since, wherever you go in that building the constant sound of the fair is heard. Joining multiple organizations shows your commitment to not only the education that everyone has can gain at Stockton University but also the overall experience of college. The overall experience of college include multiple things such as making friends, getting involved, gaining an education, and this list can continue endlessly, but the point is that college is more than just about getting an education. Aside from the education that you will be getting in the classrooms, the Get Involved fair is the best place to begin to experience the overall college experience, where you can choose to get involved in what the college has to offer. At the same time as getting involved and signing up for these organizations, you are gaining friends that have the same interests as you or who share the same life goals as you for example, you might befriend someone that is as passionate as you about going to dental school, who you first meet at the Pre-Health club. Also, not only are you gaining friends and getting involved, but you are also building your resume up for potential employers and graduate schools with combinations of clubs, sports, sororities, fraternities, and volunteer hours. Many of the people that are sitting at the tables trying to recruit people are incredible in a way that these people are great at putting the mission of the club out to the people walking by in the hallways and convincing people to join the club that people actually feel bad not joining the club. Also, free items are usually at every table drawing people into the table, where they would listen or read what the club is about. Overall, the Get Involved Fair is one of the best ways to kick-start the year that leads to a more positive college experience and for future goals.

Fall Day of Service

One of the annual events at Stockton University is the Day of Service which was on the 9th of September this year. The Day of Service began in the Main Campus Center where breakfast was served and students signed their names with a black sharpie on name tags. The purpose of the Day of Service was to inspire students to give back to the community. The fall Day of Service is one of the first events hosted by the university to kick-start the events the university has to offer throughout the year. After breakfast, everyone went into the Campus Event Room where the plans for the day were explained. The day was split up into four different parts which composed of going to a political event, making crafts for Ronald McDonald house, making crafts for the wellness center for suicide prevention while lunch was served, and the last part of the day was filled packing bags of rice packages.

Based on the color of the name tags, everyone was split up into four groups and sent off to their first destination which was in the lower F-wing hallway. The first part of the political event consisted of polling, where students were given four choices: strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, and strongly disagree. Based on their choices, students had to line themselves into groups on how they felt about the statement that was being said. After completing this poll, students spent their time doing various of things such as signing up to vote, writing on a large piece of paper about what environmental changes or concerns they have, and getting a pin.

Soon enough, it was time to change activities and go to the second activity. Going back to the Campus Event Room, everyone was given a choice of doing whatever craft they wanted to complete for the Ronald McDonald house. At this time, four volunteers were chosen from the group to make peanut butter jelly sandwiches for local people in need of food. During the craft event, most of the girls were found at one of the tables making intricate bracelets for the children at the hospital to wear. Others were putting together coloring books for children to color in. Some people were helping to make pillows that were going to go to people in need of them. As the music played, everyone worked diligently until the end of that activity.

Upon arriving at the third activity, which was located by Dunkin Donuts, lunch was served. While eating, everyone started to work on the crafts for the wellness center for suicide prevention. There were hundreds of rocks that were expected to be painted about suicide prevention. Also, people received small circular pieces of paper to draw and write inspirational messages on for suicide prevention. These small pieces of paper were then transformed into pins. In the coming weeks, the rocks were seen displayed throughout campus, and the pins were distributed to the students, who hanged the pins on their backpacks.

The last activity for the day was packing rice packages for malnutrition countries. The process started with putting a certain amount of rice, beans, and vitamins in a bag. These bags were then passed to the next station where people put enough rice to get the bag to a certain weight. After these bags were accurately weighed, the bags were sealed and placed in boxes to be shipped. One group alone made ten thousand bags for people in need in third world countries so together as a college a difference was made in the world. The day ended back in the Campus Center Event room, where students reflected over what was achieved throughout the day through a survey.

Toys for Tots Shopping

One of the things that the Honors Program does each semester is a service event that is run by honors students. This semester’s service event was Toys for Tots. Toys for Tots is a fundraiser that collects toys for less fortunate children. Honors t-shirts were sold in order to raise money to buy the toys. Around $280 was raised from selling shirts. On Sunday, November 26 some honors students got together to go toy shopping. Before going toy shopping, everyone met up in the campus center where which toy store we were going to was discussed. Since some students did not have cars on campus, everyone who had a car ended up carpooling with the students who did not have a car, on their way to Toys“R”Us. On the way to Toys“R”Us one car was following the other, since not many people knew where the store was located.

Upon getting to Toys“R”Us, all the students met up at the front entrance of the store to discuss what needed to be done. Also, people were split into groups of 3 and were assigned age groups of kids that the toys needed to be for. For example, one group was assigned infants while another group was assigned 12 to 13-year-olds. Each group was told that they could spend approximately $45 dollars to get high quality, age-appropriate toys for the age group they were assigned. Everyone split up into their groups and went to go search for some toys. After everyone picked out the toys, everyone met at the front of the store, where all the toys were organized and taken a picture of. Also, a picture of the students that went to the shopping was taken. One of the things that many people discovered during this trip was the fact that toy shopping is expensive since most people got 3 large toys for around $45 to $50. Then all the toys were ringed up altogether when it was discovered that the bill was higher than the amount of money that was raised. Thankfully, the cashier decided to provide a 15% off coupon that brought the total down to the amount that could be covered by the money raised. Everyone drove back to Stockton, where all the toys that were bought were put into the Toys for Tots boxes that are around campus.