By Abigail Passafiume
The Student Association approved $650 in funds towards the Black Onyx Unity week BBQ that was held April 18, at both Hawkins pond and the Glitz Auditorium.
The Black Onyx hosted its annual C4 week. This year’s C4, short for challenge college campus campaign, took place over the week of April 14. The club hosted multiple events to help students get involved in varied activities and get educated on a wide array of topics, such as sexual violence awareness and ways to succeed academically.
“We are doing this to help change campus culture. This is a way we can provide varius different events such as academic, sexual assault education and fun ones that involves music and dancing,” President of Black Onyx Zanaeja Dandy said.
Some events during C4 week included a 3-on-3 basketball tournament in collaboration with University Police, a workshop focusing on understanding different personality types and the “Does it Glow?” meeting.
The final event of the week being the C4 BBQ with special musical guest R2R MOE.
“Our Unity Barbeque is a two-part event. We have food and games for our attendees,” Dandy said.
The BBQ was intended to be a celebration of unity for all students, with the prime goal of spreading fun. The event was host to several games such as bean bag tosses, tug of war and a potato sack race. The winners of the competitions walked away with prizes funded by Black Onyx, such as a self care basket and other small treats. The rewards for the victors helped drive student engagement.
Charlotte Feliz, who will act as the President of the SA next semester, acknowledged that this event helps bring community engagement to campus, and the requested cost is within reason.
“You guys did a lot for promotion, especially at the dorms, dining halls and places on campus. The event is expecting 100 to 150 people,” Feliz said.
Unique to this year’s celebration, the Black Onyx decided to combine their annual pageant with their C4 BBQ. This was decided in part because of low involvement numbers across campus, but primarily helped ultimately save the club and the Student Association funds.
“We are only asking for $650 because we usually do a pageant and our C4 week events, but, unfortunately this year, because of the lack of campus engagement, we couldn’t host the pageant alone. We decided to combine the pageant with the C4 events, and that gave us left over funds to put towards these events,” Dandy said.
The SA voted unanimously in favor of the request.
