On Friday Oct. 16, the Associated Student Government, the Campus Activity Board and the Bellevue College Association of Veterans hosted a carnival in the cafeteria. Students could swing by to get free popcorn and cotton candy, have their face painted and play games.
CAB funded and organized a pumpkin carving contest for the event, and the Veterans Association was handing out candy and spreading information regarding their group.
Valeriia Borodina, ASG campus life and events representative, said that the carnival had been an annual event previously, though one was not put on by the ASG last year. The carnival is meant to be a fun experience for students and also to engage them with various groups and opportunities on campus.
“Bellevue College is still a community college and we try to make people know the student government exists,” said Borodina, “and we don’t do fun usually; we do legislation usually, we do funding requests, we work with documents a lot. We wanted to bring a bit more fun to students.”
Running from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. the carnival filled the cafeteria with free snacks, painted faces and balloon art – which included the hats adorning the heads of the Veterans’ Association representatives.
Each of the pumpkins had been gutted of their seeds the night prior, and went under the knife again on Friday.
Contrary to what had been previously stated by ASG President Gabriel Amare, the ASG did not provide information regarding the Bellevue College Foundation’s “We Are BC” campaign at the Carnival. Popcorn was in high demand, and the machine ran empty an hour prior to the event’s end.
Members of the ASG were surveying students at the carnival for their opinions on what a BC smartphone application should contain, as well as the personal importance of issues such as wages for faculty, financial aid and transportation.
Additionally the survey asks whether students are aware and in support of the proposed partnership between Washington State University and BC. The survey is available for completion at www.surveymonkey.com/r/BCfall15.
Jessi Bagdasarov, CAB’s student event coordinator said that the carnival was meant for students to “just have a fun time, to be a little childish.” Peer-to-Peer volunteers staffed the popcorn and cotton candy machines, and operated a couple of carnival games, including “Tip a Troll” and a ring toss.
Borodina thanked Peer-to-Peer, saying “they always help us and support us, even if they’re very busy they help us in these ways.