Students at the Harvest Festival play carnival games for prizes. Glassboro, N.J. Friday, Oct. 17, 2025. (Sarah Shockey)
Homecoming week festivities continued on Friday with the Harvest Festival on the Hollybush Green.
The festival, hosted by Rowan After Hours (RAH), ran from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and featured various stations filling in the grass on the corner of Trustee and Oak Grove Drive.
Activities included a pumpkin painting station, bounce houses, and carnival games. There was also a live DJ playing music at the event and multiple food trucks. Once students signed in with the RAH table at the entrance to the festival, they were able to get free food and beverages.
Later on that night, the Rowan Dance Team gave a performance right in front of the DJ stage.
Drashty Patel, 22, is a senior business and human resources administration major from Lansdale, Pennsylvania. Patel also works as a student coordinator for RAH and was stationed outside the carnival games tent at the Harvest Festival.
Patel says that event planning is something that she loves to do. So, helping to set up the Friday festival was something she was happy to do.
“Event planning is my forte,” Patel said. “We’ve been setting up things since 9 a.m., and it took about two hours to get everything ready.”
Her favorite activity was the pumpkin painting station. RAH provided both the pumpkins, set up in a makeshift patch, and art supplies, allowing students to create their own fall festive decorations.
Patel is also excited about the new food trucks that are serving as vendors for this year’s Harvest festival.
“That was something that we didn’t have last year,” Patel said. “I’m also very excited about a couple of the food trucks we have, because they haven’t been here[Harvest Festival] before. So it’ll be cool to see if our students like them or not.”
The Harvest Festival gradually saw more students arrive as the evening went along. Many came with their friends, including Fiona Currie, 20.
Currie, who is a junior, came with her friend group from the John H. Martinson Honors College.
“It’s so fun for us to get to hang out together,” Currie said. “The event overall is about fostering a sense of community, which is very fitting for homecoming weekend.”
There were also several tables set up on the Hollybush Green, including an information tent for the Schreiber School of Veterinary Medicine.
Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge even had a live Prof for students to interact with. The owl had come into the wildlife refuge’s care with a left eye injury and had surgery to remove it. As a result, it was deemed unreleasable and now serves as an animal ambassador.
Peter Combs, 20, also works as a student coordinator for RAH. The sophomore environmental science major worked outside the Carolina Blue food truck during the festival.
As a first-year worker at the event, he was pleased to see how many people took the time to be a part of RAH’s fall festival.
“It’s great seeing so many faces show up,” Combs said. “There’s a really good turnout this year, which makes me super happy.”
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