Tie-Dye Festival Ties Community Together One T-shirt a Time
By Carrie Sherman, Editorial and Creative Services
December 19, 2007
Clockwise from upper left: Adam Grindler 09, Rachel Patterson 09, Sara
Townsend 09, Kristina Marttinen 09, Kate McCloy 09. Lisa Nugent photo
What’s more cheery than a tie-dye T-shirt? What better way to unwind
at the end of the semester and the beginning of the holiday season than to
make a tie-dye gift or enhance your wardrobe? Certainly, just as its project
organizers envisioned, the First Annual Durham Tie-Dye Festival was a great
way to bring together the community and the university.
This December recreation management and policy (RMP) students in associate
professor Ann Morgan’s course, Recreation Program Design, created the
first annual Durham Tie-Dye Festival. They got organizations to set up information
tables. They lined up local groups that included Good Morning Chester, Alabaster
Blue, and Fat Bunny (just family-friendly music, the musicians all agreed).
To publicize the event, RMP project organizers sent e-mails, posted fliers,
and made personal pleas. “Look,” they said, “this event
is free and open to all families, students, and members of the Durham community.”
In a press release published in the student newspaper, The New Hampshire,
one of the RMP project organizers, Kate McCloy, said, “We feel that
UNH students still have a lot to learn about the town they live in. We hope
that this event will open up the history and events that the town has to
offer. Likewise, the community can come and learn about students and their
activities.”
On a Friday afternoon, project organizers set up tables in the Granite State
Room for both student and community organizations, arranged the tie-dye equipment,
warmed up the cocoa, and got out some tickets. They opened the doors at 4
p.m. Gnarlemagne, a local band with a great horn section, belted out renditions
of Otis Redding and Jimi Hendrix songs. They waited a bit more. Then, one
by one, two by two, students and local families began to saunter into the
Granite State Room. Even with ridiculously busy holiday schedules, they came,
each carrying a telltale white T-shirt—or rather in this day and age:
a v-neck, Fruit of the Loom camisole, Tommy Hilfiger, or faded B’Sox
tank.
Surrounding the central tie-dye station, people visited the tables and chatted
with members of Alpha Chi Omega, Ecological Advocates, and Durham: It’s
Where U Live. In the foyer, Ann Shump, supervisor of the voter checklist
for Durham, ran a voter information and registration table.
Adam Grindler, another RMP project organizer, had simply called the Town
Office and asked for help.
“With the primary election so close, we knew that students would have
lots of questions about the process,” said Grindler, who is from Virginia
and plans to obtain an absentee ballot to vote in his home state’s
primary.
All told, according to the clickers used as people came in the door, 417
people came.
“Events like these can become great fun traditions,” says Morgan.
In the past semester, students in her course have conducted 15 community
events both on campus and in other Seacoast communities. “It’s
all about community and people getting to know and support each other.”
DBA president Johanna Knight was there with her 13-year-old son.
“An event like this helps local kids to feel more at home in their
own town. And, it gives them a taste of college life,” said Knight. “As
soon as he’s done, we’re off to a middle school dance. He’s
already done a T-shirt, now he’s doing his socks.”
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