Making friends is an important part of college and getting involved is one way to meet people. Organization Fest is a Marquette tradition for students to make connections while learning about campus organizations.
O-Fest took place Sept. 1 on the Central Mall and students learned about student organizations on campus. Marquette has a diverse range of activities offered for all students. Some are as old as the campus itself and other clubs are getting a brand new start this year.
One of the newest clubs offered at Marquette is called A Moment of Magic. The club president, Allie Spears, a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences, is excited for their first active year and wants more people involved.
“The big things that we do is we go visit kids; it might be in hospitals; it might be at special events dressed as famous superheroes and princesses,” Spears said.
AMoM is a nonprofit organization based in New York with 29 chapters throughout the country. A close friend of Spears got them involved with the chapter at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and it inspired Spears so much that she brought it here.
“Some of [the kids] had just been through cancer treatments, others were faced with disabilities and other medical vulnerabilities and just to bring magic … and joy during such a hard time was something that really inspired me, and so I wanted to bring it to Marquette to share with other students here and also the Milwaukee community,” Spears explained.
Learn more about AMoM, what they do and how to get involved at @amom.marquette on Instagram.
While Spears’s time is now dedicated to AMoM, she also advocates strongly for another club that’s near and dear to her heart.
Spears was in the all-female a cappella group, Meladies, which uses no instruments besides their voices. Kamila Cwanek, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences, now leads the group, and she has a lot of goals for this year.
“My first goal is to rebuild the group … as well as looking in to recording music on to Spotify,” Cwanek said. “My number one goal is definitely to get people involved because I want them to have the same experience that I had.”
Auditions for the Meladies are Sept. 13-17, and the link to sign up is in their Instagram bio, @mumeladies. There are two other a cappella groups on campus. Those groups are The Naturals, which is all male, and The Gold and Blues, which is co-ed.
While O-Fest is about involvement, it’s a new experience for first-year students. With so many options it’s easy to become overwhelmed. For Lexi Kotwiza, a first-year student in the College of Arts & Sciences, it was a time to learn about the range of activities.
“There was a variety of clubs and … I think everyone was able to find something,” Kotwiza said. “I want to sign up for self-defense classes which were offered by [MUPD].”
MUPD is offering free self-defense workshops to students and faculty Sept. 21, Oct. 5 and Nov. 9. They will be teaching defensive techniques and covering information about national and local crime statistics. Registration is available online through the Marquette website.
O-Fest showed off the Marquette spirit by offering students an abundance of ways to get involved on campus through clubs, both old and new.
This story was written by Izzy Fonfara Drewel. She can be reached at [email protected].
https://soundcloud.com/marquette-radio/o-fest
