By Morgan Robertson
This past weekend was rather eventful for the LEAP Ambassadors, and on Saturday evening Jessica and I volunteered at the Wynne Home Arts & Visitor Center Harvest Festival. We arrived a few hours early before the event to assist with a fall festival at the beautiful historic home and art center. Inside the outdoor classroom, Cultural Services Manager Sarah Faulkner and Admin Assistant Caitlin King had begun to set up the food, which included a candy bar, pita chips with an assortment of hummus, and Frito Lay Scoops for chili from McAlister’s. After we were satisfied with the display of the food, we began setting up the drinks table, craft tables and all other decorations that needed to be placed on the yard.
Needless to say that The Wynne Home’s beautiful backyard was fully utilized during the Harvest Festival, with the two craft tables set up in the yard and dispersed lawn chairs for the crowd that came to listen to musician Scott Morrison.
He presented a variety of songs by different musicians such as Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash, and more for the crowd to choose from. The crowd loved him and were appreciative of Scott for allowing them to choose what song he should play next.
The first craft table included mini-foam pumpkins where guests, mainly the children, could express their artistic abilities by painting and adding stickers to them.
The other craft required a little bit more attention to detail and more fine motor skills since they had to trace a leaf pattern onto festive paper, cut it out and then decorate it with glitter and stickers using mod-podge. Then if desired, the leaves could be hole-punched and strung on a twine string to be displayed as a garland decoration, or an ornament.
All of the LEAP Ambassadors as well as SHSU student Erin Juarez, made their own leaves and connected them on a string. The Wynne Home kept our leaves and said that they would hang them up inside the home! I can imagine Ms. Stephanie or Professor Yawn having a laugh while trying to identify which leaf belonged to whom if they were to see them hung up.
Before the event wrapped up, Ms. Faulkner and Caitlin drew out a name from the raffle bowl to see who would be walking away with a fall-themed coffee basket. To add to the suspense, they had Scott announce the winner, but he did not announce it right away. Instead he told the crowd that in his hand he was holding the name of the winner but would not announce it until after he played another song. At the end of the song, he announced that the lucky winner was SHSU Geology Professor David Moss. Afterwards, he continued to play more songs and closed with one of his favorite songs, during which the children of professor Moss came up and donated money in his guitar case.
It was a fun way to spend our Saturday evening, and we are glad we were able to help the community and Ms. Faulkner.
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