Despite its power-related hiccups, OUSC’s Beats and Eats event was a major success. Masses of students lined up for pizza and donuts — supplied by The Little Donut Factory and the Oakland University Student Congress office.
Advertised as an event featuring fraternity and sorority organizations, s’mores, a food truck, tie-dye tee shirts and music by WXOU — the campus radio station, OUSC Beats and Eats 2024 was an opportunity for freshman and first-year at OU students to meet, dance and have a good time.
Beats and Eats was not without its shortcomings, as power for this event for WXOU to DJ and play music was not provided. It is unclear whether or not this was a misstep in communication with any party — OUSC, OSI or Facilities Management — in regards to acquiring a generator for WXOU.
Nevertheless, the show must go on and WXOU eventually got power from an unsuspecting volunteer they picked out from the crowd, student Danny Fortino.
Fortino got into his car and parked right behind the s’mores and DJ area, where the speakers and laptop needed to DJ were plugged into his car — it ended up running until Fortino ran out of gas, just enough time to where the event had slowed down.
“It feels pretty good honestly, I’m a DJ myself and I just feel very happy that I could help out and bring life to the party,” Fortino said.
Event Coordinator at WXOU, Andrew Deacon, reassured that despite the setbacks, the event drew many people to the DJ booth and the station as a whole.
“The event is called Beats and Eats, we provide the beats, OUSC provides the Eats — it’s pretty simple,” Deacon said. “Our job as DJs, as the radio station here, is to make people comfortable enough that they can dance like nobody’s watching… and I feel like we did that — when we had power [laughs]. This week has been super hectic and we made due with what we got.”
The newly elected Garcia-Brumer slate got to work as soon as the event hit 8 p.m. by serving up pizza, drinks and s’mores to plenty of hungry and excited students. Activities like corn hole and tie-dye were also available for students to try out.
“Seeing these hundreds of people here that are being able to make these tie-dye shirts and get donuts and pizza and all of that makes me very happy, the pain of it was worth the outcome,” OUSC VP Brumer said.
Jimena Garcia, the president of OUSC, was recently elected by the student body on a platform that values diversity in the student body in order to foster wellness in the community, according to her meet-the-candidate profile on Instagram.
“It was great, it’s so heartwarming seeing so many people who care about student congress and care about the campus community at large, coming together and helping out,” OUSC President Garcia said.
Even though he was not paid for his effort, the “savior of OUSC Beats and Eats,” Danny Fortino was grateful to both WXOU, the Greek Life on campus and OUSC for putting on this event.
“I think it’s a good way of bringing the communities together and kind of helping out newer and returning students,” Fortino said.
You can get involved with student congress by emailing [email protected]. You can also learn more about their events by visiting their Instagram page.
