A Homecoming Tradition Grows for Young Rutgers Fans and Families
Alumni with young children celebrate the season at President's Family Fall Festival
“It’s a great experience and an easy way for us to all come back and get together. And it’s a nice way for us to introduce our families to Rutgers.”– Avi Naveh, Class of 2000
When Avi and Einat Naveh came to the first President's Family Fall Festival in 2014, Avi, a 2000 Rutgers University-New Brunswick graduate, had not been back to campus in many years and their son, Nathaniel, was a baby.
Five years later, the homecoming weekend festival is an annual tradition for the Fair Lawn, N.J., family, a place to meet up with Avi’s far-flung college friends and their kids. Nathaniel, 5 1/2 now, loves hitting the mini-golf course every year and jumping in the bounce house. His 18-month-old sister, Daniella, is just beginning to find her favorite activities.
“It’s a great experience and an easy way for us to all come back and get together,” said Avi Naveh. “And it’s a nice way for us to introduce our families to Rutgers.”
The President's Family Fall Festival hosted by the Rutgers University Alumni Association (RUAA) is now in its fifth year, offering young families a fun-filled, child-friendly homecoming event on the president’s lawn. The gathering provides alumni a chance to reconnect with friends and spend time with their children at their alma mater.
Tucked away from the more boisterous homecoming tailgating scene outside HighPoint.com Stadium, more than 250 alumni and family members turned out for this year’s festivities, including a petting zoo, pony rides, cookie decorating and hayrides pulled by a tractor driven by President Robert Barchi.
“We love the hayrides with the president,” said Einat Naveh.
Francis Barchi, who came up with the idea for the fall festival soon after she and her husband, President Barchi, arrived at Rutgers, said she loves that it draws alumni who love Rutgers with their kids – which can only be good for Rutgers in the future.
“If these kids are coming to Rutgers as small children, where are they going to apply to college?” Francis Barchi said. “This is a long-term investment that follows on the student experience and gives parents a chance to show their kids, in an inviting and safe environment, what it’s like to go to Rutgers.”
For Doris Cespedes of New Brunswick, it was the first time she brought her three children – Christopher, 8, Layla, 6, and Jason, 4 – to the festival. Based on the time Layla spent with piglets in the petting zoo run by members of the Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station Animal Care Program, they will be back next year.
“I am always looking for activities to do with my kids outdoors and in our community,” said Cespedes, who earned her undergraduate degree in psychology at Rutgers University-New Brunswick and, more recently, completed the RN to BS in Nursing Program. All three of her kids loved watching the Rutgers Marching Band make its way to the football stadium before the homecoming game, and were smitten by Scuttle the amazing rooster who performed tricks for the crowd at the direction of Rebecca Potosky, an animal care technician with the Animal Care Program.
The morning event is one of many hosted by the RUAA during homecoming and year-round to help alumni reconnect and be a part of Rutgers. The RUAA offers events, volunteer opportunities, exclusive benefits and more ways for alumni to build upon their relationship to Rutgers no matter when they graduated or where they live.
“Homecoming for alumni is all about coming home and spending time with their Rutgers family,” said Donna Thornton, vice president of alumni relations, annual giving and communications. “Each year, the President’s Family Fall Festival offers a family-friendly environment to show our smallest future alumni what it means to be scarlet forever.”
Dressed in Rutgers scarlet, Hannah Teris knew just what she wanted to do during her third President's Family Fall Festival – get her photo taken with the armor-clad Scarlet Knight. Her parents, Leslie and Benjamin Teris, who met at Rutgers Law School in Camden after both earned their undergraduate degrees at Rutgers-New Brunswick, make the trip from Deptford, N.J., every homecoming weekend.
“Hannah asks about it every fall,” Leslie Teris said. “This is something we all look forward to every year.”