By Emily Nixon
On March 18, the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) held a puppy party for Brooklyn College students to help them de-stress before midterm weeks in the Student Center.
“Especially this year, when it’s midterm season,” said USG president Noam Abrahams. “It’s [the event] all about just providing a way for students to kind of de-stress a little bit while on campus.”
The puppy event has been held previously, though some changes were made to it since, so as to ensure a smooth process. This semester, students were given tickets upon sign-in to redeem for time slots to spend with the puppies.
USG developed the ticket method of managing the number of participating students after learning from the first time they held this event, according to Abrahams.
“The very first time we did it, it was outside on the quad. There were five puppies. The line went from the front of the quad, all the way to West Quad Center, and then around the building. It was intense,” said Abrahams. “We’ve learned and we’ve gotten more puppies, and we’ve worked out this ticketing thing. We’ve tried to move people through a little faster.”
Even more students attended the event than expected by the RSVP count, and it had a plethora of workers to ensure the event went smoothly according to Abrahams.
“I think, RSVP, we had 273 [students],” said Abrahams. USG later confirmed that 377 students attended the event. “I wanna say it’s around 25 volunteers plus the USG members [working the event].”
This event should be coming to BC again next spring semester according to Melanie Tam, USG student senator since last fall semester.
The event has been held with Puppy Party for the past three years according to Puppy Party’s manager and events designer David Barber.
“We do this college for three years in a row,” said Barber. “It started out with one student looking for a particular, strange activity, I guess, and they were looking around for something to engage with the students for a testing phase in school to make it calm, something relaxing, a stress-free environment, and to do something different for the students they’ve never done before.”
This event aims to help the puppies just as much as it helps the students who participate, according to Barber.
“Every puppy that was playing in people’s homes were starting to get homes or being sold faster than any of the other puppies,” said Barber. “What we learned was the puppies learned how to hug, dance, and be social and want love from the people and didn’t hide or run away when people came into the room. So people bonded with them faster, and the puppies bonded with the children and the owners faster, so not only did this become a win-win-win-win situation for everybody.”
“You don’t see any sad puppies over here, right?” asked Barber. “If you go over, when you get a chance, look at every puppy and look at them directly, you’ll see the happiness in their eyes and in their mouth, and their whole demeanor is like, “Oh my god, this is the best thing to ever happen to me.”
Puppy Party prides itself on the ability to host these parties and the luxuries they’re afforded because of the demand for puppy parties, according to Barber.
“The puppies were socialized and trained automatically, the children had a great experience in their parties, and it paid bills,” said Barber. “So, now we can afford medical, housing, the government regulations, the insurance, the rent, the electric, the phone bills, the advertising, and more, and food and so on.”
Puppy Party is the only company certified to host puppy parties in the U.S., and the certifications list is lengthy and costly according to Barber.
“For us to do the event, we have to be certified by seven different authorities; Humane Society; ASPCA; Department of Health; Department of Agriculture; Circus Licensing; Travel Licensing; and Certified Bonded people, so to do that, costs thousands of dollars,” said Barber. “Nobody else can do that. We’re the only ones in the United States […] We’re the ones that are actually certified.”
The puppies came from private kennels in Connecticut, Long Island, and Florida.
Events like the Puppy Party are hosted often by the USG, giving students opportunities to socially engage with others.
“[The event] helped distracted me from my midterm,” said Bran. “I think it gave me a good sense of calmness. I felt calm, I was able to forget I had like pages of papers to write.”
Both Bran and Sara Poleselli, a junior political science major and Italian exchange student, offered that the event should contain kittens if the USG were to do the event again.
“You suffer more by being scratched by cats,” said Polesilli. “It shows you the suffering of studying for finals is not really suffering.”
BC’s student life is overlooked by students and outsiders alike, according to Abrahams.
“Brooklyn College is really comparable to other CUNYs at the forefront of student activities in student life and innovating how that works and getting that done,” said Abrahams.
Students interested in upcoming events from the USG can check their Instagram: @bcstudentgov.