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Weekend games score big at Mills

Weekends on the Mills campus have been bustling recently with organized activities such as ultimate frisbee, playground games, yoga, and even kickball. You’ve seen the flyers. You’ve read the Facebook posts. You might have even heard it through the grapevine. Someone’s been working hard to organize some fun activities for the weekends.

That someone is Lisa Kelly.

After many complaints from students about the lack of action on the weekends, Kelly, an undergraduate Education major, was hired by APER staff member Catie Anderson to organize and lead activities on campus.

Through emails, surveys and student news, Kelly has been able to put together weekly activities which are open to everyone: Mills students, staff, graduates, EF students, and anyone who hears about the events. Other than a weekly event, Kelly also organized an intramural league that included basketball teams and badminton teams.

“You should come out if you want exercise, fresh air, or a study break,” said Kelly. “Everyone’s invited and it’s a great opportunity to meet people you normally wouldn’t meet and to introduce yourself to new sports.”

The first event, an ultimate frisbee tournament, took place Sept. 30 with eight of the Mills community showing up, two of which were faculty members. For the second event on Oct. 7, five people came out to Playground Games. Yoga was especially popular on Oct. 14, when ten people showed up for graduate student Sarah Cassel’s afternoon of intensive yoga.

Cassel, who found out about the new weekend program through a newsletter and decided to volunteer to teach, welcomed the opportunity to take up her previous job from Barcelona.

“I’m a little rusty but I’m really excited to be teaching again. I was really grateful that Lisa gave me the opportunity to take it up again,” said Cassel.

Of the ten students who showed up for the workout, seven were EF students. “I was really glad that so many people came out,” said the Sacramento native, “even the EF students, who aren’t typically involved, were able to come and it was great.”

However, the weekend of Oct. 21, which was supposed to be kickball, proved unsuccessful with only one other person showing up for the event.

“It can get really frustrating to work so hard and not have people come to the events but I [want to] make sure there’s something for people to do over the weekend and I’m not a quitter,” said Kelly. Kelly was specifically hired for her commitment.

“I worked with Lisa over the summer at the summer arts camp and I saw every day how much energy, responsibility, and timeliness she brought to the job and I knew she’d be perfect for the job,” said Anderson. “She’s got a lot of spunk and she’s an athlete so it just seemed like a natural fit.”

The biggest event so far has been Dodgeball Day, which took place on the morning of November 11. Four teams of at least six people arrived to dodge, duck, dip and dive, each dressed in attires ranging from matching green shirts to cape-wielding superhero costumes. A delicious potluck and prizes for the most spirited teams added to the successful event.

“It was so awesome,” said Kelly. “I was really, really worried about it going into it.but it was way more fun than I thought it could ever have been.”