PLNU hosts community at annual fall festival

Last Saturday morning October 22, PLNU held its annual fall festival. The event serves as a way to get the community on to campus and interacting with students and faculty.

One of the first festival attractions to be seen by visitors was a sustainability tent, advertising one of PLNU’s campus priorities. Walk a bit further into campus and you could hear the sound of music coming from the live concert taking place below the grass hill of Sator Hall. The rest of the way down Caf Lane and up to Colt Hall was lined with business tents, hoping to cash in on the free festival.

There was a pumpkin patch on the Nicholson Commons balcony, filled to capacity with kids trying to find the perfect gourd. Down by Golden Gym you could find inflatable obstacle courses and a face painting station. For those a little older there was a climbing wall to be conquered.

The weather was warm and clear in the morning, but at around noon a deep fog rolled onto campus. The weather change sent some people to their cars, but the event stayed lively until its planned ending time later in the afternoon.

Many Point Loma students were off campus because of the long weekend, but the ones who stayed were overwhelmingly welcoming to the idea of visitors on campus.

Austin Stephens, a junior Marketing major at PLNU, noted the experience of the children he saw on campus. “It’s really cool to see so many kids with smiles on their faces, and to know that my school is making that happen. If nothing else comes from this event I think it would still be worth it because of that.” Many students who attended shared this sentiment.

Stephens also thought that the school was doing a good thing by providing something for parents to do with their kids free of charge.

Ben Bran, a PLNU junior Exercise and Sports Science major, thought the festival was an effective way to pop the Loma Bubble. “I think that on a college campus, and on this campus in particular it is easy to forget that there is a world outside of the school.” Bran thinks that it is important to have a connection with the “real world” because he believes that those connections are what will really help once students graduate.

Other students noted that the event provides us an opportunity to minister. Joshua Adams, a junior PLNU Broadcast Journalism major, said that “When we have people from all over San Diego it gives us a really cool opportunity to share what we as a school are all about.” He continued by saying “ we don’t even have to preach to them. Through what we do today we can get people who aren’t fans of the church to warm up to us.”

Point Loma’s Fall Festival is now a staple event on campus, and one of the major ways that the school involves itself in the community. Its an event that visitors and students alike can enjoy.