The Residence Hall Association(RHA) hosted their fifth annual Mardi Gras event on campus.
This year’s event held booths from various organizations including a cake walk, mask painting, bracelet making, and cupcake decorating. RHA president and art education senior Hailey Padilha shares how this event began at MSU.
“The history of it as it’s been told to me was that there was a student who came from New Orleans, a resident, who wanted to see themselves represented better on campus and so they created a smaller Mardi Gras event,” Padilha said.
The RHA works to make students feel more comfortable on campus by hosting events such as Mardi Gras.
“Because the Resident’s Hall Association mostly deals with making people feel more comfortable on campus, feeling like they have something to do is also really important,” Padilha said. “I think it’s significant to have lots of different organizations represented because residents who enjoy being on campus stay on campus.”
In order to make this event successful, RHA begins planning in advance, reaching out to different organizations to see if they’d be interested in hosting a booth. Then RHA relies on volunteers to come help set up and takedown the event.
“We had just tons of different residents who wanna see this happen and came out and helped decorate and set up and hopefully tear down cause this gonna take a lot of work too,” Padilha said.
Padilha shared what she hopes to see for the event in the future. She mentions that the event is currently funded through RHA funding.
“So we get money from housing to do a small event and so we’re hoping that eventually MSU will take this up as a tradition because it’s happened so many years in a row. And then help fund it and make it bigger,” Padilha said.
In addition, as the RHA president, Padilha shared how students can get involved on campus.
“I think the best organizations are the ones you don’t expect to enjoy because sometimes it’s hard to find a hobby for everything you do and enjoy, so it’s a little daunting,” Padilha said. “So start with the University Programming Board or, not to shameless plug, but the RHA. The RHA is also a really great resource, just to get your name out there so you see yourself in more student leadership positions.”
