The Valentine’s Day Pottery Painting and Crepe Cakes event hosted by the International Students’ Community Center (ICC) in partnership with the Arts Student Body Council (ASBC) was off to a slow start, likely due to the weather changes affecting traffic. However, that didn’t stop students from jam-packing the event.
The event hosted around 80 people, all there to paint statuettes and indulge in crepe cakes.
The idea behind the event came from ICC treasurer My Duong’s experience in Vietnam.
Duong said that pottery painting was a popular activity back in Vietnam, and so she wanted to bring a piece of that to the university as a fun way to bring people together, couples and singles alike.
The event’s setup was festive, with red and white gingham vinyl tablecloths spread over the tables. Cute little paint pots and paint palettes and adorable statuettes peppered the room — with notable characters such as Hello Kitty and Winnie the Pooh for participants to paint and take home.
The ICC also hosted different local businesses at the event, such as Unique Bunny, which had goodie bags filled with things from the store that they were giving away to anyone at the event who followed them on Instagram.
Duong also tabled at the event, selling crochet bouquets, hair clips and stickers.
A hopping night, the hosts even played a game of Kahoot! to find the winner for a giveaway, the prize being a crochet bouquet made by Duong’s partner.
The night would not be complete without some treats, however, of which the ICC ensured there would be. For Us Bakery provided and served matcha and vanilla-flavoured crepe cakes at the event to satisfy hungry participants’ sweet teeth.
Elinam Okae-Yeboah, internals executive for the ICC, said she was surprised by the number of people that signed up for the event.
“We actually didn’t expect it to be this many people,” she said.
“I saw in the first hour so many people had signed up and I [thought] we might have to close the forms because there might not be enough space and we don’t have enough figurines, but then My was able to provide extra.”
The group’s last event, a job information session, saw the most attendees their programming has ever had, with 30 to 40 people attending.
So many people were interested that the organizers had to change the event location, moving from the Arts Lounge in Fletcher Argue Building to a room in the Engineering & Information Technology Complex to accommodate the large number of people.
“It’s nice to see that many international students, or many students in general, are interested,” Okae-Yeboah said.
“It was surprising.”
Overall the Valentine’s event was a great turnout for the ICC.
