Valentine’s Day activities bring students to Link Library to share friendship, creativity

A card-making station in Link Library.

Photo credit: Mi-Ree Zwick

By Mi-Ree Zwick

A Valentine’s Day-themed event to build connections on campus drew around 20 students to Link Library on Tuesday for a game of “speed-friending” along with friendship bracelet making and a Valentine’s Day card station.

The friendship version of “speed-dating” was designed to build community among students, and the event included drinks and snacks for participants or passers-by. Participants gathered around a long table and rotated every two minutes to introduce themselves and answer question prompts. When the activity ended, students were invited to create friendship bracelets for others or themselves.

Karen Centeno, the director of the library, said that Link Library’s primary mission is to provide students with academic support, but their secondary mission is to create a community hub for students on campus.

“We want the library to be a place where students not just go to sit and study, but also a place where they can share and gather together,” said Centeno, who helped organize the event.

The speed-friending event was just one activity that Link Library organized to encourage students to build community both on- and off- campus. Another activity was making Valentine’s Day cards for residents of the Ridgewood Rehab & Care Center in Seward to encourage love and care for the community of Seward. The card-making station was set up in the library lobby for several weeks.

Librarian Naomi Dang helped set up the speed-friending event and card-making station. She said that they were trying to make the library a more welcoming area for the Concordia and Seward community, using Valentine’s Day as a way to do so.

“We had over 71 cards made to donate to the Ridgewood Home Care in Seward,” Dang said.

Dang said that the library is a space for all students, faculty, and staff. The hope is that students will be able to recognize that Link Library is a resource and a hub at Concordia, especially for students.

“Traditional libraries are quiet,” said Dang. “Nowadays, libraries are seen as a hub of collaboration and new ideas. Since it’s Valentine’s Day, we wanted to take advantage to make it [the library] more collaborative and social.”

Freshman speed-friending participant Amallia Geuy was invited to the event by her friend from the Paul Scholars program who helped prepare it.

Geuy said she enjoyed meeting new people, learning more about people she already knew before the event, and getting to make some bracelets at the end.

Guey especially thought the question prompts were “thought-provoking and deep” in a way that she had “not thought about previously.” She also said that the event was very relaxed, and she enjoyed the selections of colorful beads for bracelet-making.

Sophomore Mitchell Stephens is a student worker at the library, and he was encouraged to join the event.

“It was kind of funny because I knew a lot of the people there. It was nice to meet new people, but it’s also fun to get to [hear from] some people I already knew,” Stephens said.