{"id":265891,"date":"2025-09-30T07:08:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T07:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/265891\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T07:08:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T07:08:10","slug":"houston-hall-hosts-fall-porch-party-featuring-penn-resource-groups-to-welcome-new-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/265891\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston Hall hosts Fall Porch Party featuring Penn resource groups to welcome new season"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"03-30-25-college-hall-devansh-raniwala\"\/
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Houston Hall hosted the Fall Porch Party on Sept. 29.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCredit: Devansh Raniwala<\/a> \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Houston Hall hosted the Fall Porch Party, an annual event welcoming the new season, at the Perelman Quadrangle on Monday.\n<\/p>\n

The gathering featured pumpkin ornament decorating, seasonal pastries, and outdoor games such as cornhole and Connect Four. Alongside the seasonal decorations both inside and outside of Houston Hall, Penn Violence Prevention<\/a> and the Cultural Resource Centers<\/a> held booths informing students of their programs.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cThe changing of the seasons is something very important to celebrate, because it is tied very much to our wellness and our mental health,\u201d Jonathon May, Penn University Life associate director for student development, said in an interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian. \u201cYou know, this idea that things change. Even if I’m stuck in a rut, stressed, or if I’m feeling stuck emotionally or physically, that change will come.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

May, who was also in charge of the event last year, said that attendance in fall 2024 was nearly 600 individuals. He highlighted that the gathering was not only for undergraduate students, as he hoped for Houston Hall to be a hub for the entire Penn community.\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want students to be exposed to as much diversity as they can throughout their four years of college, or two years of grad school, or whatever it is,\u201d May said. \u201cWe want them to get those experiences.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

He noted that, in recent years, attendance at the Fall Porch Party has been increasing.\n\t<\/p>\n

Nursing junior Elayna Rinker told the DP that she believed the event was a \u201cgood mental break\u201d from her day-to-day activities.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives us a chance to hang out with friends that we see in class but sometimes don’t have time to hang out with outside of class,\u201d Rinker said.\n<\/p>\n

Sophia Yu, a Penn University Life graduate assistant and member of the office\u2019s student development team, concurred. Yu also told the DP that she had seen increasing student interest in the event while overseeing its marketing.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI was also acting as a photographer last year, so I took a lot of pictures and I posted on Instagram,\u201d Yu said. \u201c[Students] loved it, [and] they had a great response for that event.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Alongside the fall-themed activities, PVP held a booth showcasing stress balls, keychains, and a \u201chealthy relationships\u201d chart. PVP Associate Director of Prevention Education and Programming Julie Hastings told the DP that she appreciated partnering with the Fall Porch Party because it introduced the resource to Penn students.\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\tSign up for our newsletter<\/p>\n

Get our newsletter, DP Daybreak, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want people\u2019s first time meeting us to be when they get referenced to PVP \u2014 because that could be scary, to talk about your relationship or your sex life,\u201d Hastings said. \u201cWe want to be able to say that this is a friendly resource \u2014 that [students] got a stress ball from the table, talked about healthy relationships in pop culture, and then got to know us as a friendly face.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The Cultural Resource Centers also held a shared booth. They informed students about the seven centers<\/a>, where each was located, and what purpose they individually served.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe partnership that we have with Cultural Resource Centers is really important in the fall, because it\u2019s when many, particularly new students, are discovering diversity and differences,\u201d May added.<\/p>\n

The Daily Pennsylvanian is an independent, student-run newspaper. Please consider making a donation<\/a> to support the coverage that shapes the University. Your generosity ensures a future of strong journalism at Penn.<\/p>\n

Donate<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston Hall hosted the Fall Porch Party on Sept. 29. Credit: Devansh Raniwala Houston Hall hosted the Fall…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":265892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,36852,24255,45738,517,50,1448,2830,1311,11027,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-265891","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-app-front-news","10":"tag-front","11":"tag-general-assignment","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-pa","15":"tag-pennsylvania","16":"tag-philadelphia","17":"tag-studentlife","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115291993626540690","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}