A new movement has come to Puget Sound. ALOHA, which stands for Active Logger Ohana Helping All, is the brainchild of junior Marc Fagaragan.
Fagaragan, a tour guide at Puget Sound, was inspired to start ALOHA after giving a tour when a mother of a prospective student pulled him aside and asked him if he had ever felt uncomfortable as an ethnic minority on campus.
While he had never felt uncomfortable, the question led Fagaragan to think about the community here at Puget Sound. He noticed that while our campus is unified, our student body “is not as united as we could be,” according to Fagaragan.
He noticed something was missing; a common thread that holds all of the campus community together beside just being Loggers. This is where ALOHA comes in.
ALOHA is not a club funded by ASUPS. In fact, it is not a club at all.
“It [ALOHA] is a movement,” said Fagaragan. The group is about focusing on the small things that bring us together instead of focusing on different cliques that divide us. Each month has a different theme, and each week offers a new challenge to the campus community.
The first month was Passion month, and one of the challenges posed to the campus was to ask a random person what their passion is rather than their major.
The theme of the month of November is humility, and last week’s challenge was to give one honest compliment to someone you have never met before.
These challenges are small actions that work as a uniting factor for the University.
“ALOHA gives students the opportunity to change the campus culture through small acts of kindness, or challenges,” junior Lisa Tucker said. “Students participating in this initiative have the opportunity to step outside their social comfort zone to make our campus a more inclusive place to go to school.”
The movement is new, but has been gaining momentum since it started in October. It began with three people and now has 10 participants who attend weekly meetings, which are held in Wyatt at 6 p.m. every Tuesday.
Fagaragan has big ideas in the works, such as a high five tunnel from Thompson to the S.U.B.
The driving force for all of this is “passion to do small actions that make a positive impact on the world and instill passion for life,” Fagaragan said.
Any questions or recommendations for challenges or themes? Feel free to email these to aloha@pugetsound.edu. Are you up for the challenge?
“Let’s make this Logger experience a masterpiece,” Fagaragan said.
Each week, these monthly themes and the “Logger Action of the Week” will appear in the Features section of The Trail in the ALOHA box.
