Manicures, henna tattoos and Homecoming candidates filled the Ceddia Union Building (CUB) multipurpose room Wednesday night to raise money to benefit the Cumberland Valley Animal Shelter.
Walking into the room, Shippensburg University students were immediately engulfed with the smell of nail polish, the sound of smooth R&B and all around excitement.
Homecoming candidates, Brandon Christmas-Lindsey (known as Christmas) and Madeline Kwarteng, decided the night would be best fit to host together as co-coordinators, which they will continue to do for future events.
“We are partners for homecoming, so we wanted to do events together,” Kwarteng said.
When deciding whether he should run for homecoming king, the decision was practically made for Christmas after he received more than 30 messages of encouragement.
“I decided to run for Homecoming king because of my personality and my activeness on campus… I hold many leadership positions on campus and decided to use my connections for this night,” Christmas said.
Christmas is an Orientation Team (OT) Manager, OT Parent Director, CUB Marketing member, Chair of B.R.O.T.H.E.R.S Organization and much more.
Like Christmas, Kwarteng put in a lot of effort at the university and received support from the student population, in her choice to run for Homecoming queen. She is a student worker in the Women’s Center as well as an Orientation Leader, which gives her the support to succeed in the running. “I thought this would be a good way to give back to SU and leave some sort of legacy.”
Christmas was able use his connections to collaborate with the Asian American Organization (AAO), who are nail salon professionals, to provide manicures for SU students.
Another popular vendor was Lovely Henna, a temporary henna tattoo company.
“I have been doing henna for 12 years,” Madiha Qureshi, owner of Lovely Henna, said. “I know college students like it, and it seemed like a good idea to be a part of this night.”
Kwarteng said that in future events, they are planning to sell soul food platters.
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