Orange Festival to celebrate campus tradition

Giancarlo Falconi // Staff Photographer
Giancarlo Falconi // Staff Photographer
Giancarlo Falconi // Staff Photographer

The third annual University of Miami Orange Festival, which celebrates the university’s history and traditions, will he held Friday.

The festival will run from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. in the Student Activities Center. The entire festival will be covered in the color orange – hence the name.

“We’re going all out with it,” said Holly Bensur, marketing chair of the Orange Festival. “Orange soda, balloons, decorations – we even turned the fountains orange.”

The first UM Orange Festival was held in the spring of 2013 after two former students, Jonny Diaz and Melissa Guller, felt they saw a lack of spirit on campus during the spring semester.

The founders of Orange Festival wanted to create an event similar to homecoming to celebrate a love of school spirit. To make the event possible, they recruited fellow students Seth Furman, Michaela Hennessy, Doug Aguililla and Monica Metcalf to help plan the university’s first ever Orange Festival.

“Attendance has been growing steadily since that first year,” Bensur said. “We’ve gotten more sponsor, donations, volunteers, booths, shirts and food than ever before.”

This year, there will be eight organizations participating in the event and teaching students about history and traditions at the U. Each organization will set up its own booth for students to visit.

Students who visit every booth will receive a free Orange Festival T-shirt and food.