Kickin Off the School Year!

This last Friday was our new student kick-off day, and the entire week was super busy as we prepared for the festivities! Since we are still in the middle of a pandemic, we decided to do a walk/drive by the campus instead of gathering everyone inside in the student commons. We handed out goody bags and a sack lunch, and all of student services were outside to answer any questions students may have had. We met several times on this matter, trying to come up with the best way to still make this a fun-filled day, while keeping everyone safe and healthy too. This was my first kick-off day as an employee, so I have nothing to compare it to, but I think it went very well and was a successful day all around! 🙂

I was part of the goody bag stuffing crew, so in the days leading up to Friday, we were plenty busy stuffing hundreds of bags full of fun stuff for the students. We decided to give every student two LATC branded face masks as well as some hand sanitizer; and all the new students got a branded laundry bag and some other fun goodies as well. So, for two and a half days beforehand, we stuffed 2,000 Ziploc bags full of masks and hand sanitizer, and then over 1,000 laundry bags full of goodies. It was certainly a process, but we got it all done in time for the big day!

On the morning of kick-off day, we were all panicking that we were going to get rained out for the event, but luckily mother nature spared us! We did have some pretty wicked wind though, which made it a little difficult to keep track of all our papers. I was in charge of the Student Activities table, and had tried to tape all of my fliers to it to advertise all the events I have coming up; and even though they didn\’t fly away, they were pretty beaten up from the wind by the end of the event. I had several activities for students to sign up for, and even had a whopping four more students sign up for my run club! I knew it would start small, so I will take anything I can get at this point. 🙂

Not only did I have my sign up sheets, I was also giving away soup mugs and Ramen Noodles to the students as well. They loved the mugs, but for some reason, no one wanted any Ramen. Isn\’t that like a college student staple?? And who says no to free food?? Oh well, I still had a good time meeting everyone and getting people interested in signing up for some activities. Even though I had to yell over a DJ for two hours straight, and could have sworn I was going to lose my voice, it was a good time. 🙂

Over the weekend, a lot of students will be participating in the Crash the Community scavenger hunt I put together for them. I wanted them to get a feel for their new home, especially those who are new to Watertown, so I put a list of places together that I wanted them to visit so they\’d know where things were. I had them go to the lake, one of our many healthcare providers in town, had them go to the grocery store and the police station, and even included several local businesses in there so they could have some fun places to shop. I\’ve already had quite a few people turn their scavenger hunt lists in to me, and they\’ve all said it was such a fun activity to do, which makes me so happy! I put a lot of work into making sure everything worked out for it, so I\’m glad students are having fun doing it.

Classes start on Monday, and next week we have an event every single day for the students to partake in, so it will be another busy, busy week! I\’m so ready for it though. I can\’t wait to meet more people and see what kind of ideas I can come up with for more fun stuff to do. Hopefully that darn Covid stays away so we can have a good school year.

Hope everyone has a good week coming!

Until next time! 🙂

Megan Reiffenberger