The Student Government Association (SGA) and Center for Student Involvement (CSI) teamed up for the annual Oktoberfest celebration, welcoming students’ families and hosting a variety of events full of fun and frights.
Screams and Screens
The weekend kicked off last Thursday with a screening of the 2023 Disney movie remake “Haunted Mansion” on the Bandshell Lawn. SGA offered attendees snacks and drinks, including Pepsi and popcorn.
President of SGA Shannon DeCicco shared how much went into the planning of Oktoberfest.
“Our Secretary of Programming Christina Defeo, she’s the one who really puts through all of the effort. She works really closely with Amanda Riehl and Eddie Seavers and CSI to put on everything, so they look at what worked in the past years,” she said. “Some things that we realized last year, the [Thursday] night event wasn’t the biggest so we twisted it to a movie night and that seemed to have been a little bit better for students to want to go to.”
Festival of Frights
In the spirit of Friday the 13th, the Festival of Frights was held at Laurel Courts. Students walked around the courts and participated in the different activities, including axe throwing, cornhole and a zombie room, which was an inflatable tent full of zombies. There was also a Stuff-A-Plush station, with the choice of either a pumpkin or an orange teddy bear. Throughout the party were zombie decorations and loud music.
Family Day, Carnival and Lunch
Saturday was the most jam-packed day of the weekend. Ramapo welcomed students’ families with family photo ops, mock classes and the Carnival hosted in the Bradley Center Auxiliary Gym. The gym was packed with people as they snacked on various food offerings, including vegetarian chili, hot dogs, cookies, macaroni and cheese cups and an assortment of drinks. There were many other activities that families eagerly participated in, such as bobbing for apples, bingo, face painting and caricatures. Families were also free to walk around the campus and explore.
SGA Chief Justice Liz Mendicino shared how she loves getting to see the students come together with their families on campus. “[Oktoberfest has] been in the process of being put together for over a month and just seeing it all come to fruition is really awesome and seeing people with their families all over the place, getting food and having fun, it’s great,” she said.
Haunted Mansion
On Saturday evening, the E-wing second-floor hallway was transformed by Alpha Psi Omega National Theatre Honor Society into a haunted house with Halloween decorations and scary actors doing their best to make attendees scream. Among the actors were a clown doing contortionist tricks, an actor pretending to beat another actor with a mallet, a crying ghost girl and a scary doll jumping out of a box. There were also tour guides in costume to guide groups through.
Haunted Kitchen Competition
The final event of the weekend was a competition held in Friends Hall to see which group could create the best haunted house out of edible materials, such as frosting, candies and graham crackers. The winner was awarded with a Lego set. Halloween-themed music was playing in the background setting a spooky but festive atmosphere.
cgriffi5@ramapo.edu
Additional reporting by Rebecca Gathercole and Jessica Hammer
Featured photo by Rebecca Gathercole
