By Avonlea Brown
Cedarville University’s campus shut down on Monday due to a Winter Storm Warning that started in the afternoon on Sunday and ended Monday night.
The warning proved timely as the snow began in the early afternoon on Sunday and lasted until late Monday afternoon. Wind whipped students back and forth while pelting them with a steady stream of snow. Even the Kubota vehicles tasked with plowing walkways struggled to push through the accumulating snow mounds.
With the food contracts not beginning until Tuesday, the original starting date for classes, students who made the trip back over the weekend needed to make grocery trips and stock up on snacks.
In Willets Hall, a concerned mother provided Tupperware full of sandwiches and snacks to the public kitchen on Saturday, hoping to feed any student unprepared for the storm. Meanwhile, some students made plans to make the best of the snowy situation and foster community nights within their halls and, in one case, a spaghetti dinner.
Caleb Wilcox, a junior chemistry major, returned to campus on Saturday night with his two younger sisters who also attend Cedarville University. The original plan of returning late on Sunday night changed with the emergency weather announcements made by the university and weather channels.
When he settled into his room in Parker Hall, Wilcox’s roommate came up with the idea to hold a spaghetti dinner for kids on campus who came back early and did not have food.
“My mom was telling me about how other parents were worried about how the students would not have food,” Wilcox said. “Once we decided to open up the spaghetti dinner to people on campus we went to Dollar General and got more spaghetti and sauce and just asked people to bring a small donation to cover the cost. We did not do it for money, we just did it to help people.”
Around 15 people showed up to the dinner, which Wilcox posted an announcement about on the Classifieds that night. The food lasted only one hour into the two they planned out earlier that day.
In other halls, students combined their snacks and microwave meals into dinners between roommates, neighbors and entire halls. Emma Litchfield, RA in Willets and Junior Biblical Studies major, arrived back on campus Sunday afternoon before the snow. She and fellow RA Ariella Waters decided to turn a community night into an informal potluck.
“We learned about the campus closure and all that at the same time as everyone,” Litchfield said. “We had the idea for a game night before all of this happened and then the opportunity presented itself, and the food was Ari’s [RA of the adjoining hall] idea.”
After students secured food, they then turned their attention to the nearly six inches of snow on the ground. Sleds made of plastic and cardboard zipped down hills across campus, snowball fights and snowmen appeared in front of residence halls and on the side of the road.
No student can prevent their inner child from running loose in the face of a snow day.
Avonlea Brown is a senior Broadcasting, Digital Media, and Journalism major and editor of Campus News for Cedars. She likes reading, traveling, and learning new things.
photos taken by Avonlea Brown
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