By: Jared Landeros
The Jump Off event flyer shared on social media. (Photo via @oapiapresents, @socaatpurchase, @lu_sunypurchase on Instagram)
On Sept. 6, the major culture clubs on campus, Students of Caribbean Ancestry (SOCA), Organization for the African People in the Americas (OAPIA), and Latine Unidos (LU) held their seventh annual Jump Off party at the Stood.
Jump Off was the first official Stood party of the year, and the club heads hosting the party intended to set the tone for new students.
Establishing a welcoming environment was crucial for the hosts of the party. Michelle Naire, a senior and the vice president of SOCA, expressed the value of the party, saying that, “A lot of us share intersectional identities, so it’s about us getting together as a community and celebrating our cultures and heritage together.”
Music played at the party was sourced from the cultures the hosting clubs represented, coming from both Black and Hispanic cultures. Fauri Estevez, a senior and the vice president of LU expressed their desire to hear “reggaeton, dembow, soca, kompa, and more dancehall,” adding, “Especially with the last recent years when we became a more Hispanic serving institution, having people on this campus hear the music that they probably grew up with all their lives is very important to me.”
Alicia Garbutt, a senior and president of OAPIA, shared her desire for freshmen to “have a great time. That’s what a party is for, you come out to dance, you hear good music, you meet new people, you hang with your friends.”
“We just want them to know there is somewhere for you to go to let loose, to have fun, and lowkey let them know the culture clubs running things there,” Garbutt continued.
Students dancing at Jump Off inside the Stood. (Photo screenshot via Alicia Garbutt's video)
Freshman Vrai Dobrish, whose first Stood party was Jump Off, said that they “really liked the lightning. It made me feel like I was in a real club. It was like pink, yellow, blue, orange. Sometimes it was beaming, sometimes it was flashing, but it depended on the songs.”
Dobrish commented about the density of the venue, “I wasn’t even dancing a crazy amount just standing in the middle surrounded by everyone—you just start sweating.”
Dobrish expressed how much fun they had with their friends despite the intense heat, saying, “If I saw someone I knew, I would be like ‘Hey!’ I did take a few pictures with a few of my friends, so I was taking pictures, dancing, and talking even if it was really hard. It was more like screaming at each other and watching people dance when there was a dance circle.”
A senior and President of SOCA, Tristan Keane-Negri, contrasted the difference between this year’s event and those prior, sharing that “This is the first year that the school is at full capacity since we got here. For us, this hopefully means the type of events and parties and what we are able to do is bigger and it’s better.”
“This is one of the only student-run spaces that is an event space in any collegiate setting,” said Keane-Negri. “Schools don’t have this so, the fact that we have this, we have to utilize it to do good events and have fun.”
The Stood is funded by the Mandatory Student Activity Fee (MSAF), therefore higher attendance means a higher budget for future events.
Anthony Cruz, a senior and president of LU, emphasized the value of the culture clubs on campus, and that they “would also say students have a hard time transitioning to a college campus, a lot of students with different backgrounds, and different means of what a college campus means to them. Coming from a toxic household, these parties were very good.”
As Seniors, the cultural club leaders experienced a non-traditional campus experience given the effects of COVID-19. Garbutt, Cruz, and Keane-Negri all expressed the contrast from their freshman experience compared to their current one. Garbutt in particular said, “Yeah we got lucky, we skipped the communal bathrooms!”
Keane-Negri found that “the things that transitioned with COVID-19—that is kind of a loss—is that I noticed that in the course of going here that people are slowly becoming less social and less inclined to go out, but that’s not us. We’re artists, we’re creatives, we’re eccentric people!”
Keane-Negri continued, “Eccentric people deserve to have a space to go and be themselves and the Stood has always been that. There’s never been a time where you come in here and get made fun of, t’s always supposed to be a good time, this is what Purchase is.”
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