The hallways are buzzing, students are scrambling with sheets of butcher paper, and all of the buzz around campus is centering around basketball.
It must be winter homecoming.
When students arrive on campus on Monday they will be greeted with hallways outfitted with elaborate decorations and students dressed for the first of a week of dress-up days intended to get students prepared for the big game on Friday against Turlock.
Yes, it will truly be “Out of This World!” – the theme for Enochs’ 2024 winter homecoming.
According to Enochs activities director Sara Mariano, the hallways are one of the cornerstones of the celebratory week, and creating them takes weeks of preparation in addition to the days required to install the elaborate displays.
And having kids working over the weekend means keeping them fueled up to get the job done.
“It’s [a] huge, huge project for them because they decorate the hallways, so they will be here all night tonight, all day tomorrow, and all day Sunday,” Mariano said. “[They’re] pretty much giving up and sacrificing all their time this weekend to decorate those hallways so that when our students walk in next week, our school’s transformed into those four areas, so that you guys are delighted with scenes from all of those things when you get here next week.
“I am helping those kids get all the resources and things that they need, all the paint, all the cardboard, all the supplies, all the paper, and then I feed them all weekend long to make sure that stay.”
Here are the dress-up days for the next week for students who want to get in the spirit:
- Monday: Avatar – Blue vs. Camo
- Tuesday: Guardians of the Galaxy – 80s Day
- Wednesday: Space Jam – Jersey Day
- Thursday: Star Wars – The Force Awakens (Pajama Day)
- Friday: Spirit Day
According to Mariano, the homecoming game itself is a joint effort between herself and her leadership students as well as staff members from across campus that band together to make sure that the week is a success – and a testament to the dedication of the leadership students that make it possible.
While the payoff will be the look on the student’s faces when they walk into the finished buildings on Monday, the amount of work to get to that point is immense.
“You can see all the projects and all of the work that’s happened behind the scenes like that,” Mariano said. “They’ve been working on a Guardians of the Galaxy sign for weeks, so a lot of time and effort for sure.”
“They will be here all weekend and lots of them will take projects home. They still need to do their homework and they still need to rest and they still need to get ready to dress up next week. There’s a lot of sacrifice on them, I would say.”
