As some students travel back home for Thanksgiving, UCI celebrates their own Thanksgiving celebrations for students who remain on-campus this year. Student Success Initiatives (SSI) hosted a friendsgiving potluck with the International Student Exchange Program (ISEP), the TRIO Scholars Program and the Foster Youth Resilience in Education program (FYRE) on Nov. 26.
The potluck celebrated the holiday with international, foster, low-income and first-generation students from various SSI programs. The term “friendsgiving” is defined as a “celebration or meal shared among friends on or near Thanksgiving Day.” First coined in 2007, the celebration serves as a prelude event to Thanksgiving, emphasizing friendship and community.
ISEP aims to support UCI’s international students by offering resources like the International Peer Group (IPG) program, which matches mentors and mentees, as well as academic coaching, SSI workshops and more. Siyu Pan, a third-year literary journalism and film and media student from Shanghai, China, serves as ISEP’s social media specialist. According to Pan, she and other international students don’t celebrate a traditional Thanksgiving holiday while on campus unless ISEP hosts an event.
“And I think this friendsgiving thing really gives international students, at least me, a kind of cultural vibe of how Thanksgiving is and [what it means] to other local native students,” Pan told New University. “So I think it’s definitely worth it to have this friendsgiving potluck for more international students, mentors or mentees to get to know the vibe of Thanksgiving because it’s something that we can’t get from our daily [lives] because we don’t celebrate it.
The FYRE program, under SSI, aims to support current and former foster youth students through a welcoming community and academic enrichment. Carolina Llerenas, a fourth-year psychology student and FYRE peer educator and mentor, spoke about how campus community and friendships are key to enjoying Thanksgiving on campus.
“Many of us don’t have any other home to go to; us being here in Irvine, this is our home,” Llerenas told New University. “So just being able to share a meal with other students who are going through the same experience as you or who have gone through similar experiences in the past through the foster care system, it’s something that brings us closer together.”
UCI’s campus tradition for Thanksgiving began in 2010 when former UCI Chancellor Michael Drake and Vice Chancellor Parham initiated a celebration for students without homes to return to during the holidays, including those connected to the foster system and international students. They hosted the first turkey meal in the Palo Verde graduate apartment complex, preparing a feast for nearly 125 students.
“The chancellor and I were talking about the number of UCI students who are homeless, connected to foster care, are international students or are otherwise not accommodated,” Parham said in the 2010 UCI Campus News article. “He asked that we make sure we had a way to come together with those students to celebrate.”
In 2011, Drake and Parham hosted the feast in Middle Earth, where it continued to be held in subsequent years. The second annual celebration aligned with the “Take an Anteater Home” Student Affairs initiative, which supported the students who were unable to go home for break by opening homes to students, faculty and staff who otherwise may have spent the holiday alone.
In 2012, UCI Hospitality and Dining Services extended invitations to international and dorming students as part of the “Take an Anteater Home” initiative. Based on the turnout from the previous year, Parham and Drake prepared meals for 250 students.
In 2015, UCI Chancellor Howard Gillman, former Vice Chancellor Thomas Parham and other faculty and staff led the university’s sixth annual Thanksgiving lunch at Middle Earth, serving several hundred international and domestic students
These Thanksgiving feasts continued for several years before they recently transitioned to to-go-style dinners at Brandywine. This year, UCI Dining served Thanksgiving meals at Brandywine on Nov. 14, tagging their posts with #Friendsgiving. Dining staff offered students honey-baked ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, roasted chicken and more.
Alyssa Villagonzalo is a Features Intern for the fall 2024 quarter. She can be reached at akvillag@uci.edu.
Edited by Kaelyn Kwon and Jaheem Conley