Christ, Culture, Connection club hosts inaugural event, draws crowd for sports and Latin American cuisine
Students play spikeball and cornhole on the grass in between the Janzow Campus Center and the Esther and Dorcas dormitories.
Photo credit: Kai Olbrich
By Kai Olbrich
Concordia’s newest club, called “Christ, Culture, Connection,” hosted its inaugural event featuring a sand volleyball tournament, cultural food tasting and music on April 29.
The event was populated from the very start, with attendees lining the sand volleyball court and patio deck of the Janzow Campus Center. There were many forms of entertainment, like volleyball, spikeball, music and food tasting.
CCC President Sionie Marin said that the idea for the club came about when she and her friends were having a debate over which Latin American country had the best food.
“It all started when me and my friends were arguing about which country made the best food, and everybody knows that it’s Haiti, but my friend still wanted to argue, and so we just decided that we should have a cook-off one day,” Marin said. “But then we were like, we should invite other people so that we can get their votes, and they can participate. And then we just decided that we should make a club because there are a lot of international students. And in college, you need to learn more about the people and the world and just expand your knowledge about that.”
Marin detailed her group’s thought process behind planning the event, starting with the most important aspect, the food.
“So, pretty much the most important part of every party is the food,” said Marin. “So we started with the food.”
The event’s second priority was music, Marin said.
“Then, obviously, the second most important thing about a party is the music,” she said. “So we figured out the playlist, and then we just decided to do a sand volleyball tournament and some other yard games and whatnot, because food, entertainment, and music, that’s pretty much all you need to have a good time. And then the little details we just figured out as we went along.”
CCC Vice President, freshman Jaxon Lipker, was very happy with the turnout and with the success of the club’s mission to share cultures with Concordia students.
“I am very excited with the turnout,” Lipker said. “Especially since our big thing is wanting to spread cultures and just kind of give everybody here an insight into different cultures. And I think we achieved that tonight.”
He said the event was “really fun” and that he “absolutely loved everybody that came out.”
Marin said that CCC has some plans already forming for next semester’s events.
“We are definitely looking to do a lot more activities like this,” Marin said. “One of the next ones that we want to do is going to be like a culture day, where we’re going to have tons of booths representing different countries represented in Concordia, and then there’s going to be food, music, obviously, maybe some more games, dancing.”
