Homecoming kicks off at Goldsworth Monday night

By Kaelyn Christian
Western Herald

At Western Michigan University, Homecoming is not just a football game on Saturday; it’s also a whole week of events that capture the Bronco spirit.

This Homecoming week gets off to a rockin’ start with a kick-off event sponsored and catered by Qdoba on Oct. 19 at 5:30 p.m. by the Goldsworth Valley Pond.

Homecoming co-coordinators Jacqueline Luedtke and Kris Banks have been planning each Homecoming week event since last year.

“We’ve been working on this for 16 or 17 weeks,” said Luedtke who, along with Banks, came up with this year’s theme, “Brown and Gold Never Grow Old.”

“We borrowed this. We Googled homecoming themes, but didn’t really see anything that we liked or inspired us, they all seemed really lame. We eventually ran across this one, thought about it, and decided we liked it,” Luedtke said.

The kick-off is something that Luedtke hopes will encourage WMU students to enjoy this time of year.

Not only will there be free food from Qdoba, starting at 5:45 p.m., but there will also be live music and contests.

This will also be the first chance most students will have to encounter the 2009 WMU Homecoming court. Nominee’s for King and Queen will be at this, and all, Homecoming events so that students have a chance to get to know them.

Usually, the Homecoming Kick-Off contest includes a Skit Night, but Luedtke and Banks wanted to mix it up this year.

“We wanted an event with a little more planning and creativity than previous years. I’d heard of canned sculpture competitions, but I’d never done one. We decided it was a great idea, and ended up picking this year’s philanthropy around the competition,” Luedtke said.

Each year Homecoming has, along with a theme, a philanthropic cause.
This year’s Homecoming Philanthropy is Loaves and Fishes, a food pantry that’s been in operation in Kalamazoo for nearly 30 years.

At each Homecoming event, including the Kick-Off, there will be collection boxes, where those attending can donate non-perishable food items. These include canned food and boxed food such as, canned vegetables, macaroni and cheese, rice, soups and stews.

“We asked around and asked the volunteer center. I’d heard of Loaves and Fishes, and they have some name recognition behind them. We asked them if they wanted to participate, and they were really excited about it,” said Luedtke, who along with Banks decided that this year, philanthropy needed to be more of a key part of Homecoming.

“Philanthropy is kind of my love child, I’m actually going into non-profit leadership. Kris [Banks] and I both agreed that we wanted more of a focus to the philanthropy,” Luedtke said. “We wanted to make sure people really knew about it. That’s part of why we chose the sculpture competition.”

After the canned sculpture competition, the non-perishable food items used to build each sculpture will be donated to Loaves and Fishes.

A performance by the all-student band, Living the Dream, will cap the night.
Luedtke says that this week is one students should revel in.

“We just hope a lot of students come to the events and enjoy the week. It’s kind of stressful with midterms coming up and we hope that people take advantage of the fun things going on,” Luedtke said.

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on Oct 18 2009. Filed under Special Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Cody Kimball
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