By Sydney Hakes
Coffeehouse is bringing the sound of music and the smell of coffee to the halls of the Angell College Center on Wednesday nights.
From 8 to 10 p.m. every Wednesday, students are invited to perform music, poetry, karaoke or any other type of performance. For those who may not want to take the stage, Coffeehouse provides a chill atmosphere for the audience to listen while drinking coffee or tea and munching on the provided snacks that week.
“It provides a chill space on campus for students to de-stress during the week,” Jose Nunez said.
Normally in Burghy’s Lounge, Coffeehouse will be across the hall in the HUB for the rest of the spring semester. Construction resulted in the change in location, but should be completed before the fall semester.
Kimberly Motieram, the director of Coffeehouse, wanted to make something different when taking on Coffeehouse. The event has been around since before her time, but the committee is determined on setting it apart from other Student Association events.
The committee members for Coffeehouse, Motieram, Nunez, Kaela Deleon, Deion Frimpong, and Adrian Castillo, come across with a professional passion for Coffeehouse. They attend every week and are consistently coming up with new ideas and events to keep students interested.
“We do game nights, musical bingo, karaoke and have other events in the works,” Deleon said. “We always have music for whoever wants to perform. We want to honor the talent of the students by giving them this place to perform.”
With a variety of events, different faces often pass through Coffeehouse. Frimpong recognizes the community benefit of Coffeehouse.
“I’ve seen Coffeehouse bring people together, which is really our goal,” Frimpong said. “It’s the power of music that will bring new people in here, which leads to meeting new people. That’s important on a college campus.”
While there are students who may only come for certain events, Coffeehouse is often frequented by a crowd of regulars. Cassandra Bray, Bliss Rhoads and Alaina Conners attend weekly.
“It’s something different to just break up your week,” Bray, a sophomore, said. “We come here to get away from homework and drink tea and just chill somewhere other than our dorms.”
Cozied up in sweatpants and hoodies, the three are there as spectators. Others wait at their tables to go up and perform. With no current sign up sheet, whoever comes ready to perform can, with some limitations on time implemented by the committee if it’s a busy night. Motieram said that might change if they continue with high attendance.
“A paint and sip event we did a few weeks ago had over one hundred people attend,” Motieram said. “I think that was our highest number of students at one event this semester.”
They often see large numbers. Motieram and her committee members speculated that they average about fifty students a week. For little promotional advertising, it’s one of the more popular SA events.
“The SA will always post on their Instagram and we usually put signs up in the ACC,” Deleon said. “Promoting never feels like a job. We’re really all here because we love Coffeehouse.”
Besides giving students a place to relax or perform, Motieram mentioned the benefits of attending Coffeehouse.
“There’s really an opportunity here for networking,” Motieram said. “We have music teachers attend, parents have come before and not to mention the other musicians. We had two people end up singing and playing guitar together the other week who didn’t know each other, but knew the same song. That’s the type of opportunity Coffeehouse provides.”
Rhoads, a graduate student, gave an inside look at what Coffeehouse provides week to week for her.
“It’s relaxing, there’s good music that usually varies and the crowd fluctuates,” Rhoads said. “It can honestly get rowdy here sometimes, but those can be fun nights. There’s also great snacks.”
While they are currently working on getting an Instagram account up and running, any questions can be directed to Motieram’s email, kmoti001@plattsburgh.edu.
