How do you create an alcohol-free campus event to compete with a holiday that’s infamously associated with liquor? Bring in life-sized Jenga, for starters. That’s what and the DSU did last week on St. Patrick’s Day—along with other life-sized board games, a paint-your-own-pottery station, table tennis, free food, and shamrocks galore.
Thanks to a partnership with Campus Recreation, Student Health Promotion, Dalplex, the Board Room Café, Serpentine Studios, and Clay Café, the McInnes Room was turned into a huge, fun rec room from noon until 6 p.m. on March 17.
“It’s very much in the spirit of what Dal After Dark is all about,” says Student Life administrator Katrina Persad. “We’re trying to give students something else to do on St. Patrick’s Day. We recognize it’s a day when students like to celebrate and we want to show that you can celebrate and have fun without just going downtown or going to a bar.”
Run by HÂţ» Student Life, Dal After Dark is a program that offers alcohol-free student events for free, or at a very low cost, on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. With a high prevalence of alcohol and substance abuse at Canadian universities, Persad says that Dal After Dark was created to combat the issue in a way that differs from traditional reactive and punitive methods. The program gives students alternatives to what is often the norm.
“It gives the same social rewards—you’re getting a chance to socialize,” says Persad. “It’s a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night, so it’s a night that you’ve got some free time, it’s a place to go with your friends. We’re giving students a multitude of things to go to during the year that don’t involve alcohol, to really show that you don’t have to have alcohol to have fun.”
Started in the winter of 2013, Dal After Dark is in its second full year of programming and steadily growing. It has already hosted or partnered in over 100 events in this current academic year alone, with more and more students signing up and dropping by the events. Last week’s St. Patrick’s Day event was no exception: about 400 students and staff took part in the festivities over the course of the day, including President Richard Florizone.
Persad urges students to provide input about what they want to see out of a St. Patrick’s Day event next year. “We welcome suggestions for what else we could add to the Games Room and any general harm-reduction program ideas for events throughout the year,” she says. Send your thoughts via Twitter () or Facebook ().
In addition to organizing its own events—everything from sports tournaments and ski trips to “dive-in movies” in the Dalplex pool—Dal After Dark also offers grants of up to $650 to students, groups, or societies who apply to put on their own weekend program. Anyone interested in hosting their own Dal After Dark event or volunteering with the program, can contact afterdark@dal.ca.