Homecoming Chair Adam Compton has plans to make this year’s homecoming week the greatest in the University’s history. This year’s homecoming week begins Nov. 1 and concludes with the football game against Maryland.
“I think this year we are working really hard to make this the biggest homecoming yet,” Compton said. “There are a lot of restrictions this year because of lack of funding. It is definitely difficult because everyone’s belt is tight.”
Compton said that the committee is working hard to overcome the financial issues.
“We are definitely working around it and we have some great ideas for this years homecoming,” Compton said. “We are trying in including different events like ones at nighttime and large scale community service events.”
Homecoming Spirit and Service Chair Jessica Thurston said that one of the focuses of this years homecoming is on community service.
“We want to have groups participating have a more hands on experience versus the traditional events of baking cookies, etc.,” Thurston said. “We are contacting local food shelters, food banks, and different places that can use volunteers. On one of the days groups will be assigned to a location and to get their participation points they must go volunteer.”
Thurston said that the committee chose to keep a lot of traditional events such as “Wear Red Get Fed”, the cookie contest, “Paint the Town Red”, the can drive and painting the tunnel red.
“One big thing that we have not done in the past is that we are really teaming up with campus recreation,” Thurston said. “They have so many resources and they have offered to let us use some of their expertise. They might be coming out to help us hold a few contests and they have been so nice to us by helping us secure an all day blood drive at Carmichael.”
Kendall Brobst, Wear Red Get Fed and Kickoff chair said that another difference between past years is the upgrading of Wear Red Get Fed.
“This year we will have Wear Red Get Fed on centennial campus for two days,” Brobst said. “It will be on main campus everyday but also near textiles one day and near engineering another day so that those students who study on centennial will not have to go all the way to main campus to participate.”
Campus beautification will be yet another focus of the week Thurston said.
“We will have groups at the beginning of the week plant red and white flowers to welcome the alumni home and to make our campus look even better,” Thurston said. “After all, the whole idea is to welcome alumni back.”
The last major change from past years according to Thurston is the team roster.
“We are going to have a running tally of the top 5 groups who are winning,” Thurston said. “You will be able to log on to the website and see who is winning. This is a good way for teams to see where they are standing, especially since we will be having so many events.”
In order to generate more school spirit a new red rule has been put into place Brobst said.
“Last year we had a problem with people not wearing a significant amount of red,” Brobst said. “So this year we are doing a new visual thing were we have to be wearing a hand-sized amount of red so it is a little more significant.”
Brobst said that it will be easy for students to follow this rule.
“Red bags count, N.C. State shirts count but we are going to crack down on actually wearing red,” Brobst said. “The whole point is to make people more spirited and more excited about homecoming week.”
Compton said that he believes this homecoming week will be the most significant so far.
“For this homecoming we want every student to be impacted by at least one aspect of homecoming,” Compton said. “It is really about reaching out there and also welcoming our alumni home. We want the campus to be really motivated and stand behind our team so we can beat Maryland on November 7.”