Fall Frenzy to vamp up campus

As New Mexico’s luscious greens give way to crisp palettes of autumn gold and ginger, ASUNM rushes in with a program set about beautifying the campus.

Fall Frenzy, a community-building event held this Friday, aims to spruce up UNM by planting flowers and trees around campus. Entirely volunteer-based, the event is reliant upon groups of people coming together for a good cause, said Julia Carrion, project director for Community Experience.

“It’s a great opportunity for student groups to get some visibility on campus,” she said. “It’s a good event that brings the community together, because everyone is coming from all these different groups to work together for this one goal or one project, so it kind of unifies the student body.” 

This year’s projected 300 participants will plant flowers at the Duck Pond, Alvarado, Oñate and Hokona halls. They’ll also plant trees at Farris Engineering Center and create a mulch walkway at Central Avenue and University Boulevard all before Homecoming week.
Since a better-looking campus is something to rally over, Carrion said, Fall Frenzy is a bonding experience.

“I think it connects, not only the students to each other, but the students to the campus itself,” Carrion said. “For instance, if you plant the flowers at Fall Frenzy, you plant the bulbs around the Duck Pond, and in the spring you’re walking by and you’re like, ‘Oh, I planted that flower.’ So it’s kind of cool that you have that connection to the physical university.” 

Tim Mousseau, this year’s Fall Frenzy executive director, said this year’s crew looks to outdo past clean-up excursions. He said all early indications point to a successful event.

“Based off sign-ups so far, we have more volunteers signed up than we ever have before at this point in time,” Mousseau said. “We have everything already funded. We’ve had a lot of people come to support us with donations from the community. That’s taken care of a lot of worries.”

Mousseau said he is most excited to see the group’s progress and finished products. 

“I’m really looking forward to the visibility of the projects. We’re doing projects in a lot of places that are a lot more visible to the UNM students. They can actually see the impact we’re making,” he said.