Where has the time gone? It seems like yesterday we were gearing up for the World Record Attempt with our bubble gum bubbles, and here we are – December!
So to catch you up to speed on all of this fun… The record attempt was a success (pending approval from Guinness World Records), we had 356 participants attempt bubbles with 304 successful bubbles that lasted the required 30 seconds. It was a great night that included a big 3-0 win for our volleyball team over a Division I rival, and most impressive – our Dig Pink Campaign collected more than $2,700 in donations to support the fight against breast cancer. We joked back in August when we were setting some Student Life goals that we wanted to do something so big, it made the local news. Turns out, we took it one step further; we made not only the local news in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines, but were on TV stations in Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Phoenix, and even Little Rock, Arkansas. (Too many links to post but do some Google searching if you’d like)
The following night, we had 275 costume dressed college students in Iowa Hall for our first ever Halloween Bash. A dance, a costume contest, and a LOT of fun!
The month of November started when I took 11 students to the APCA Regional Conference; an opportunity for students to gain some valuable leadership skills and help determine the future entertainment at Kirkwood. A total of 42 schools were represented from across the Midwest totaling a few hundred students that were given the opportunity to network and learn from each other.
The fun on campus continued while leading to the annual Glow Party on November 18th. It’s not just another event, it’s now an annual success! Thanksgiving gave students a much needed week off from classes and a chance for those of us in Student Life to recharge the batteries and start the process of planning the fun for the spring semester. Some live music, bingo, and jeopardy has kept us busy on campus since, with a Rough Riders Hockey game in Cedar Rapids providing fun to about 200 students last Friday night.
As of noon yesterday when our Kirkwood Jeopardy ended, our Fall Tour 2010 officially came to a close. From Movin’ & Shakin’, the Outdoor Movie, and Hypnotist Brian Imbus drawing record crowds the first week in August to all of the community service and fun we’ve had since – it has truly been one of the best semesters I’ve ever been involved with. If you want to see some of the fun we had, check out this 4 minute video we put together... http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=822913986780&oid=133879226651339&comments
The next step for us is getting our spring calendar put together and determining what fun we will get to have next semester, but before I move on to that task for the day, I wanted to mention a few things we did outside of the “fun.”
There have been blood drives, breast cancer fundraising, Salvation Army Bell Ringing, and so much more. Sharon Blanchard (Housing Coordinator) led the charge with the area apartments and with the help of many, we were able to donate 1,770 pounds of food to a local food bank! Recently our Student Senate lead the charge on a campaign for the United Way of East Central Iowa and were able to make a donation of close to $1,000.
Finally, just yesterday we realized the Angels walking among us on campus. Mary Huffman in our office has helped coordinate this for the past few years and every year we seem to do it again. The idea is simple, we put up some Christmas trees on campus and place tags on the trees. The tags include information about a child in our community. Boy or girl, age of child, and three things on their Christmas wish list. Anyone (student, faculty, staff, etc) can grab a tag, do a little shopping, and return the tag and gifts to our office. We then get those gifts to the Tanager Place here in Cedar Rapids for them to disperse to children in our community. Two years ago (down economy, flooding in town) we planned on maybe 250 tags – we were shocked when 375 Angel Tags were filled. Last year, 400 Angel Tags, and this year, I think Mary called about every other day asking for more Angel Tags. When the folks from Tanager came yesterday to pick up the gifts, we had 440 Angel Tags filled and packed a U-Haul truck full of gifts. It was truly a campus-wide effort that brought hundreds of smiles to the faces of children in our community and brought tears of joy for those of us involved. If you were one who helped make a difference this year, THANK YOU for being an Angel! If not, we’ll need your help next year (let’s fill 500 Tags!)
So to catch you up to speed on all of this fun… The record attempt was a success (pending approval from Guinness World Records), we had 356 participants attempt bubbles with 304 successful bubbles that lasted the required 30 seconds. It was a great night that included a big 3-0 win for our volleyball team over a Division I rival, and most impressive – our Dig Pink Campaign collected more than $2,700 in donations to support the fight against breast cancer. We joked back in August when we were setting some Student Life goals that we wanted to do something so big, it made the local news. Turns out, we took it one step further; we made not only the local news in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines, but were on TV stations in Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Phoenix, and even Little Rock, Arkansas. (Too many links to post but do some Google searching if you’d like)
The following night, we had 275 costume dressed college students in Iowa Hall for our first ever Halloween Bash. A dance, a costume contest, and a LOT of fun!
The month of November started when I took 11 students to the APCA Regional Conference; an opportunity for students to gain some valuable leadership skills and help determine the future entertainment at Kirkwood. A total of 42 schools were represented from across the Midwest totaling a few hundred students that were given the opportunity to network and learn from each other.
The fun on campus continued while leading to the annual Glow Party on November 18th. It’s not just another event, it’s now an annual success! Thanksgiving gave students a much needed week off from classes and a chance for those of us in Student Life to recharge the batteries and start the process of planning the fun for the spring semester. Some live music, bingo, and jeopardy has kept us busy on campus since, with a Rough Riders Hockey game in Cedar Rapids providing fun to about 200 students last Friday night.
As of noon yesterday when our Kirkwood Jeopardy ended, our Fall Tour 2010 officially came to a close. From Movin’ & Shakin’, the Outdoor Movie, and Hypnotist Brian Imbus drawing record crowds the first week in August to all of the community service and fun we’ve had since – it has truly been one of the best semesters I’ve ever been involved with. If you want to see some of the fun we had, check out this 4 minute video we put together... http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=822913986780&oid=133879226651339&comments
The next step for us is getting our spring calendar put together and determining what fun we will get to have next semester, but before I move on to that task for the day, I wanted to mention a few things we did outside of the “fun.”
There have been blood drives, breast cancer fundraising, Salvation Army Bell Ringing, and so much more. Sharon Blanchard (Housing Coordinator) led the charge with the area apartments and with the help of many, we were able to donate 1,770 pounds of food to a local food bank! Recently our Student Senate lead the charge on a campaign for the United Way of East Central Iowa and were able to make a donation of close to $1,000.
Finally, just yesterday we realized the Angels walking among us on campus. Mary Huffman in our office has helped coordinate this for the past few years and every year we seem to do it again. The idea is simple, we put up some Christmas trees on campus and place tags on the trees. The tags include information about a child in our community. Boy or girl, age of child, and three things on their Christmas wish list. Anyone (student, faculty, staff, etc) can grab a tag, do a little shopping, and return the tag and gifts to our office. We then get those gifts to the Tanager Place here in Cedar Rapids for them to disperse to children in our community. Two years ago (down economy, flooding in town) we planned on maybe 250 tags – we were shocked when 375 Angel Tags were filled. Last year, 400 Angel Tags, and this year, I think Mary called about every other day asking for more Angel Tags. When the folks from Tanager came yesterday to pick up the gifts, we had 440 Angel Tags filled and packed a U-Haul truck full of gifts. It was truly a campus-wide effort that brought hundreds of smiles to the faces of children in our community and brought tears of joy for those of us involved. If you were one who helped make a difference this year, THANK YOU for being an Angel! If not, we’ll need your help next year (let’s fill 500 Tags!)
Student Life Work Study Students sit in the middle of more than 1,000 gifts collected for children in our community.
