Attention: No turkeys were harmed in the making of the Gobble Games.
The Thanksgiving-themed event that Associated Students, Inc. made its annual appearance on the north lawn and brought back familiar stations of games, prizes, do-it-yourself projects, food and a new game called “Can Castles.”
Making its debut, Can Castles was a unique way to have clubs and organizations donate for the Interface Center on campus.
“Can Castles is a new event that we are putting on that is a food drive,” Chief Programming officer for ASI Programming Board Sabring Ware said. “Different teams can sign up and collect cans and bring them today and build castles.”
ASI faculty Martiz Ware, Danny Lemos and Lindsay San Miguel judged the ‘Can Castles.”
ASI Programming Board member Kassy Riggle said castles were judged on various things like use of space, creativity and the surprise object.
“They each got a different (surprise object) when they signed up…Recreation Society got a red bowl, HKN got four clear little cups and Alpha Phi Omega got some balloons that were attached together with a string,” said Riggle.
Recreation Society walked away with first place, with Alpha Phi Omega members taking second. Each volunteer that participated was given a $25 Robeks gift card for their efforts.
Gregory Dean Gould Jr., President of the Recreation Society, said that the donation of 180 cans used by his team to solidify the win were going towards a great cause.
“I thought it was for bragging rights,” nutrition major Jonathan Bernardo said. “I enjoy stuff like this…we pay our tuition and fees, and it’s nice to see events like this where it goes back to the students.”
There were prizes to the top three teams and one prize to the team that had the most cans, but since there were only three participating groups everyone won a prize.
“There are a lot of students on campus and only three teams signed up…” Alpha Phi Omega member and pre-med major Tony Huang said. “I mean I’m happy because we won but it would have been nice to see more participants.”
Students participated in the ring toss game, basketball game, archery station and had a chance to win tickets to enter a raffle for gift cards to various places. There were DIY opportunities like DIY trail mix, greeting cards and ornaments. The main attraction was the huge “I am thankful for..” wall that allowed students to write on small cards and paste them to the wall to show what is most important in their lives.
“I specifically liked the ‘I am thankful for…’ cards because I think that we sometimes forget to be thankful for just being alive, so that was my favorite table besides the games,” public administration major Marlon Greatrex said. “I did the archery game and although I didn’t have the Katniss skills, I won some tickets.”