Here's a list of most, but not all, of the events put on by Happiness Club.
ApplegramsAs the old saying goes, “An Apple a day keeps the doctor away!”, and so do Applegrams by spreading smiles to faculty and staff members of the Northwestern community! An Applegram is an appreciation note that anyone can write to a faculty or staff member at Northwestern University. Happiness Club set up an Applegram stand on campus and sold Applegrams for $1.00 as a fundraiser for the club’s activities, and in return delivered fresh apples to Applegram recipients along with an anonymous appreciation note! |
Bubbles and Bubble GumHappiness Club members really likes blowing bubbles, so we decided to make it into an event…with bubble gum! Happiness Club handed out bubble gum to students on campus while showering them with bubbles as they walked to and from class. Students also had the opportunity to stop and blow bubbles, which had a 100% success rate of making them all smile! |
Candy and ComplimentsLove free candy? Love spontaneous compliments? Combine the two and you get a classic Happiness club event – Candy and Compliments! Happiness Club members spend a night prepping the event by writing hundreds of compliments on post-it notes and sticking them to pieces of candy. The following day Happiness Club hands out these free candy and compliments to students walking to and from class. The perfect pick-me-up before a big test! |
Chalk Sheridan DayWith the help of the Be the Change Grant sponsored by the Center for Student Involvement, Happiness Club was able to buy hundreds of pieces of chalk! With the help of our club members, we successfully covered a half-miles stretch of sidewalk along the Northwestern Campus! We chalked fun games like hopscotch and tic-tac-toe, popular song lyrics, inspirational quotes, and pictures of animals (lots of bunnies)! Happiness Club spent nearly 4 hours chalking the sidewalk at night to surprise the Northwestern campus in the morning, making that walk to class an enjoyable and laughable experience! |
Compliment DayA few years ago, during reading week of Winter Quarter (one of the least happy weeks of the year) we created Compliment Day. We told the student body to send anonymous compliments to their friends using NUPost-It.com and set up computers in the library to make it easy and convenient. Over 1,000 compliments were sent and we crashed NU Post-It’s server. We feel bad about that but it was a small price to pay for all the Happiness going around. |
Free Hugs and Hot Chocolate (or Lemonade in the Spring)As Happiness Club’s first event on December 9, 2007, Free Hugs and Hot Chocolate has become a staple of the club and a great tradition at Northwestern! Every quarter on the Sunday before finals week, Happiness Club members gather outside of the main entrance to the library and hand out free hugs and hot chocolate (or lemonade during the spring) to students entering and exiting the library. Beginning at 9:00pm with the primal scream, Happiness Club has cheered up students with this simple event since its founding in 2007! |
Happiness WeekTo celebrate the end of the school year and the club’s recognition as a new student group, Happiness Club decided to end Spring Quarter 2010 with a week of awesome events and activities – Happiness Week! Ever since then, every spring quarter, Happiness Club puts on an event every day of the week, Monday-Friday. |
High Five FridayWhat action is simpler and easier at generating a smile than a high-five? Happiness Club spends some Friday afternoons holding open doors to academic buildings on campus and high-fiving students as they either go to or leave class and head home for the weekend! |
Kite FlyingHappiness Club paired up with Northwestern Community Development Corps (NCDC) to put together a Kite Flying event. Together we purchased 80 kites of all shapes and sizes and hosted an afternoon of kite flying and s’more eating on Northwestern’s beautiful lakefill! Hundreds of students came out to the lakeside to fly kites (or learn how), eat smores, and hang out! |
Lollipops of LoveAfter success with Candy and Compliments, Happiness Club decided to spice up the event and put a Valentine’s Day spin to the event. Instead of handing out candy with compliments on a random day, Happiness Club scheduled their event for Valentines Day and changed the name to Lollipops of Love – handing out lollipops with compliments and the occasional pick up line attached. |
Operation: SandboxHappiness Club built a sandbox on Northwestern’s campus for a day! It was filled with sand toys and was built in the middle of the night to surprise students as they walked to class! While few students actually played in the sandbox, many smiled and laughed at the sight of a sandbox in the middle of campus! |
Silent Dance PartyWhat would happen if you danced to music that no one else could hear? Happiness Club thought it would be fun, so we organized a Silent Dance Party! We created a 13 minutes playlist of music, emailed everyone we knew on campus, and invited them to download the music onto their iPods and meet us in front of the Tech building on campus. We counted down from 10 and in synchronization, pressed play dancing to the same music, but music that only we could hear! |