After trudging through cold weather and a grayscale cityscape created by snow and ice, students that went to the third floor of the Wellness + Helfaer Recreation facility on Friday were greeted with bright pink decorations and music.
From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., the Recovery at Marquette space was adorned with pink streamers, balloons and tablecloths as part of the Pink Pony Café, an event co-organized by the LGBTQ+ Resource Center and Student Wellness.
The café experience included an assortment of food and drinks, including custom lattes, coffee, tea, baked goods and a breakfast buffet. The festivities gave students the opportunity to congregate over a photo booth, arcade basketball and lounging spaces.
“We wanted to give people a place to go on a day that might be a little uncomfortable, and wanted to get people to the floor that otherwise would never have come,” Timothy Rabolt, manager of the Collegiate Recovery Program, said. “So many people have [said], ‘I’ve never even been in the building,’ and others have been like, ‘I come to the gym but never come up here.’”
The Pink Pony Café represented an expanded indoor version of Recovery at Marquette’s coffee bike, which made its debut in the fall semester. With the Ferla Bike, Rabolt serves students cold brew coffee on tap while giving them the opportunity to learn about the program with signs and flyers.
In the case of the Pink Pony Café, the experience was taken off wheels and instead put into the CRP’s inviting new headquarters in the wellness facility.
“I wanted to do a pop-up café concept, kind of like an indoor version of the coffee bike and have it feel like a café [where] people are hanging around, sitting in different places and getting treats,” Rabolt said.
The theme for the café derived from Chappell Roan’s song, “Pink Pony Club,” which was originally released in 2020. The high-energy tune debuted on the U.S. Billboard Top 100 in June 2024 and currently sits at 18, thanks in part to its performance at the 2025 Grammy Awards. Friday also marked the six-year anniversary of Roan writing the song, making it a fitting theme.
“Chappell Roan has obviously been very popular,” Rabolt said. “I think the Pink Pony Club song, in particular, was fitting in her finding herself through this experience at a gay bar for the first time and embracing her queerness. We felt like we had to partner with the [LGBTQ+ Resource Center] and then we looped in Student Wellness.”
The collaborative nature of the event allowed for it to grow in its offerings and reach, with an estimated attendance of 150 people.
“It started with, ‘Let’s do an indoor version of the coffee bike,’” Rabolt said. “Then it just kept getting these pieces, and then really took hold once we partnered with the RC and Student Wellness.”
With flyers posted around campus leading up to the event, the Pink Pony Café was able to attract students from different backgrounds, including those not involved with the Recovery at Marquette.
Eva Johnson, a first-year in the College of Engineering, and Annie Titterton, a first-year in the College of Arts & Sciences, have a routine of going to different coffee shops around Milwaukee each week. However, plans pivoted, causing the two of them to spend part of Friday afternoon on the third floor of the Wellness + Helfaer Recreation facility.
“I think having these resources means a lot to students, especially in recovery, because it can feel like a lonely process, especially with college life,” Johnson said. “Having a supportive community can really help.”
By inviting a large body of students, including Johnson and Titterton, the Pink Pony Café stood as a chance to break in the new space for Recovery at Marquette, representing its biggest event since the Wellness + Helfaer Recreation space opened on Jan. 13.
“Now that we have this new space, we really feel like we have a home, and it’s growing and building,” Rachael Halby, a graduate student who is in the CRP, said. “We’re doing a lot more events, and it’s just a little space to call home on campus for students that might be struggling or just want a little bit more support.”
In what is already an exciting time for the program, Rabolt added that there are a number of events Recovery at Marquette is looking forward to in the future.
For National Collegiate Recovery Day on April 15, Tom Farley, brother of late comedian and actor Chris Farley, will speak at Marquette. On April 25, there will be a collegiate recovery research luncheon and on May 2, the program will host its collegiate recovery graduation.
“What I’ve learned with recovery is you need a lot of support– everyone needs support,” Halby said. “Being able to have people coming in and seeing all the different spaces and having fun, just learning that we are not boring, we like to have fun and there’s lots of ways to take care of yourself— it’s really cool.”
This story was written by Lance Schulteis. He can be reached at lance.schulteis@marquette.edu.
