After weeks of planning and a team effort from student leaders and faculty, Hun boarding students have celebrated another special community dinner. Organized every couple of months with fun games, food, and a random seating chart, community dinners bring the Resident Life community together, each dinner different from the last!
Planning takes a lot of time, as heard from many of the student leaders. However, as time-consuming as it may be, Azure Martinek ‘25 finds it to be an adrenaline boost.
“Setting everything up as students eagerly crowd the doors, waiting until 6pm to finally see their reaction to all the work we’ve done as we open the doors — It is just so exciting to experience. It makes all that time and planning worth it.”
For this Fall Spooktacular Community Dinner, proctors chose fall and its spooky holiday, Halloween, as the theme, to which students were asked to wear fall colors to match. Appetizers such as vegetarian mummy hot dogs, monster guacamole, and a pumpkin spewing veggies on a platter, served as edible decor. Sage Dining, as always, did a wonderful job and put in a ton of effort to make the evening special.
But that’s not all they did.
The menu for the delightful meal was made to be inclusive of everyone’s dietary needs and restrictions while also keeping the spooky vibe that the dinner was centered around. This made for some super unique dishes like mac and cheese dyed a Frankenstein green and a dessert made to look like dirt, bones, and worms. Fortunately, it turned out to be chocolate pudding topped with Oreos and gummy worms instead!
Jaila Lampley ‘25, a student in the boarding community, commented on everything being “creative and well thought out,” two descriptions that definitely defined the night.!
After everyone was done eating, the game for the October community dinner finally began. Every dinner has a different game, and this time was no different. Proctors were in charge and decided to make it as competitive and creative as possible while also fitting the theme. They eventually decided to let students show off their artistic abilities and have them color a pumpkin on a paper plate. Once the drawings from each table were done, proctors had to decide on a few winners based on the dinner’s theme and/or the students’ artistic ability. This led to some super spooky and creative pumpkins being picked as the winners.!
After the winners were announced, students filed out of the dining hall, leaving with newfound friends and memories to think back on as the year progresses. As Tamara Elayo ‘25, a proctor, said best, “These dinners are to build community, to inspire people to reach out to others and make new friends.” That goal was 100% reached!
