On Halloween, the College Advancement Center at Los Medanos College held a “Creepy Tiki Open House” event welcoming students and faculty to embrace the Halloween spirit. The event encouraged the use of costumes and set up a “Freaky Photo Booth” with volunteer photographer Kaila Oleson taking photos. The photo booth made it possible for participants to have something to look back on to remember their school’s Halloween pride.

Halloween pride is not the only belief the College Advancement center has. Director of College Advancement Ruth Goodin has come up with a plan to bring students and faculty together, “We think this is one of the best places on campus to work because we really do get to support everyone on campus. We also get to know about everything that is happening on campus. That is what we love about our job, we get to support everyone.”

Goodin added, “One of the main goals for us on campus is engagement of faculty and staff; we feel this is a great way to get people engaged. We find that people, who work together, play together and spend time getting to know each other work better when it is time to get to work. This event looks like a lot of fluff and fun which it is, but the purpose is getting people together and getting to know each other as people.”

When the office of College Advancement is not partying for Halloween, they are hard at work providing for the campus. Goodin explains “The office of College Advancement is where we work on new initiatives on campus and bringing new dollars into the school to be able to start new initiatives and to support the wonderful programs that we currently have.”

According to Goodin, this is accomplished through bringing in grants and working with federal and state agencies as well as nonprofits like the LMC Foundation. The College Advancement staff also reaches outside LMC to provide contract education by providing classes for business industries in the community

The College Advancement staff members are not only good at fundraising; they’re also good at thinking creatively and throwing events that bring people together.

Faculty members and students stopped by the Halloween themed open house and were amazed at how much time and effort was put into the event.

The main room had Halloween decorations such as fog (dry ice in water), a “Witches Brew” banner above the soup table and an inflatable giant black cat as well as many Halloween colored items.

The staff kicked the Halloween theme up a notch and provided home cooked spooky snacks and entrées. Each faculty member prepared a creative food item for visitors to enjoy.  Lindy Maynes made baked finger shaped breadsticks, oranges that looked like miniature pumpkins and a butternut squash soup.

Adrian Williams brewed up a “Sea Serpant” soup for seafood lovers to enjoy. No sea monsters were harmed in the making. The soup featured shrimp and crab along with other tasty ingredients.

Goodin cooked up a vegan lintel soup that all could enjoy. For dessert, Mary Oleson and Goodin baked cupcakes and decorated them with much detail.

Guests enjoyed the food and seeing other faculty members dressed in costumes. Costumes were diverse and ranged from Superman and witches to Duck Dynasty characters.

Rhonda Ishekwene, with the Custodial Department, enjoyed her time at the event and seeing peoples’ costumes saying, “I thought it was beautiful, it was cute. They had great food and four different types of soup. It was a blast. There was a lady who came through and I kept hearing a little cat noise so I looked around and didn’t see the cat. Then I realized it was a lady carrying a little purse that was a cat for a costume. It was cute but I feel left out, I should have put one on myself. The costumes were all nice.”

Dean of Math and Sciences A’kilah Moore appreciated the effort the staff put into the event.

“I had a great time hanging out with some of the staff and students outside of our regular work hours. The decorations are great, the food is great. They did a great job,” she said.

The College Advancement staff put much effort into the event so they could bring people together. This goes to show how much the staff cares about Los Medanos and the academic community.

This event is a great example of how much effort the staff put into supporting Los Medanos on a regular basis. Unity can make a campus stronger and the College Advancement staff helped show that on Halloween.