From Communications Club to Greek Life to all the clubs and organizations in between, how many of them really gear directly towards achieving happiness in life? Connecting Clouds is a brand new student organization founded by Junior Psychological Science major, Allison Birnschein, Senior Psychological Science major, Jordan Gette and Junior Communications/Georgraphy double major, Maia Haggarty, that hosts and sponsors events that are entirely for fun and enjoyment.
“It’s about spreading joy and finding the happiness in the little moments”—McKayla Murphy
“I was definitely on board with helping the Gustavus campus de-stress a little bit, remember what’s really important, being engaged with each other instead of being engaged with their to-do list,” Treasurer of Connecting Clouds, McKayla Murphy said.
The mission of Connecting Clouds is to inspire the Gustavus community to appreciate and enjoy life. The founders of Connecting Clouds were originally inspired to form the organization when they were abroad. While studying abroad, they quickly realized how much more leisurely time they had and were then able to enjoy the simple things in life without all the stress and expectations their lives at Gustavus elicited.
They were able to enjoy life a little bit more, which prompted their efforts to bring the fun and joy they experienced abroad back to the Gustavus campus. In order to create Connecting Clouds from an idea to a student organization they needed to find advisors, apply to get organizational status, go through the training, funding, recruiting members and the rest of the steps in the process to getting established as an organization. Once recognized as an official student organization, they began to create events.
“We’re hosting a Gusties After Dark event on April 8, where there will be body painting, pictures and a bunch of fun things to remind me people of the joy with making friends and being silly,” Secretary of Connecting Clouds, Jordan Gette said.
“We’re not a traditional organization where we’ll have regular meetings or expect people to contribute money or plan on these big events, we just want people to participate more than anything and have fun”—Jordan Gette
Connecting Clouds has already recruited some members, but are always looking for more people to help out with events and participate. However, they don’t take after other organizations that require a lot of members’ free time.
“We’re not a traditional organization where we’ll have regular meetings or expect people to contribute money or plan on these big events, we just want people to participate more than anything and have fun, so there’s no target interest group,” Gette said.
The organization is there strictly to remind people of the happiness and joy in life and all there is to enjoy. They’ll continuously be putting on events and fun activities for people in order to relieve students of stress and inspire more fun all while distressing from their academics.
“I think the main purpose of Connecting Clouds is to remind people what’s really important and how joy and happiness sometimes take the backseat in our really busy student lives, it’s about spreading joy and finding the happiness in the little moments,” Murphy said.
Connecting Clouds will be hosting various events throughout the spring semester for students to partake in. Also, more information can be found on the Gustavus webpage for those who are interested in getting involved in the organization and helping set up events.
An earlier version of this article mistook Senior Communications major McKayla Murphy and treasurer of Connecting Clouds to be a founding member of Connecting Clouds. This updated version contains the corrected founding members list.