To commemorate Homecoming & Family Weekend, Colorado State University hosted the annual Festival on The Oval. The event featured live music, a beverage garden and numerous interactive booths from campus organizations and businesses around the community.

Homecoming & Family Weekend is an annual event at CSU with decades of history. Historically, it has been a chance for students, faculty and alumni to show off their school pride and connect with the greater Fort Collins community. Pete Seel, a photojournalism and media production professor at CSU, highlighted that the festival is a terrific way to bring friends and family together to celebrate CSU.

“We come here every year; it’s an annual thing,” Seel said. “It’s all the whoopla, all the people, all the organizations are here. You get to see your friends. It’s a great place to gather. This is a great blending of staff, faculty and students — we can all come together.”

For Family Weekend, the festival gave students and families a chance to reunite and celebrate together. Corinne Clark, a first-year student at CSU, said there was something for everyone at the event. Cheryll Gardner also attended the event and was pleased with the scale of the festival along with the wide variety of activities.

“We thought the Festival on The Oval would be the perfect opportunity to not only interact with the student body but also get our name out into the greater Fort Collins community. It’s so much fun to be surrounded by so many exciting and welcoming places at CSU.” -Lily Kerlin, Camp Kesem co-director

“It looks well attended, and I love the music,” Gardner said. “It’s an opportunity to check out different booths (and) try and find out what looks interesting.”

A wide variety of clubs and organizations at CSU were also given the opportunity to showcase themselves at the festival. Lily Kerlin, the co-director of Camp Kesem — a nationwide nonprofit that supports kids whose parents have or had cancer — was thrilled by the chance to promote her organization and connect with attendees.

“We thought the Festival on The Oval would be the perfect opportunity to not only interact with the student body but also get our name out into the greater Fort Collins community,” Kerlin said. “It’s so much fun to be surrounded by so many exciting and welcoming places at CSU.”

Mabel DeGrandpre, a representative of the CSU Watershed Science Club, said she was also excited about the event and described her enjoyment in speaking with attendees about her organization.

“It’s super fun,” DeGrandpre said. “I’m sort of in my little Warner (College of Natural Resources) bubble. I only really interact with ecosystem science and watershed students in this group, obviously. We have a lot of people signing up who are in computer science, exercise science and (those that) are just interested in the environment and want to learn more about it. I think it’s really cool, and it’s fun to ask these trivia questions and see what people have to answer.”

Clubs and organizations offer students a chance to find community and connect with like-minded students at CSU. The festival especially caters to students looking for new ways to get involved, and it is an excellent way for clubs and organizations to bring in new members and garner interest. Kerlin, who has been with Kesem for four years now, emphasized her appreciation for the festival and her experiences with Kesem. 

“It’s really broadened the reach that Kesem has been able to have,” Kerlin said. “I think it’s cool to not only be talking to student leaders but also being … surrounded by the greater Fort Collins community.” 

Reach Claire VanDeventer at life@collegian.com or on Twitter @CSUCollegian.