Students can reach a unanimous consensus when it comes to free food – especially when that food is cereal. On Thursday General Mills occupied the Eastern Eateries Food Court and brought all kinds of cereals and prizes with them.
EMU student Rachel Orbach felt childhood nostalgia at seeing all of the old kinds of cereal.
“I’m just so happy to see Cookie Crisps. I thought that had gone away years ago,” she said.
Students were given ballots, and asked to come up with the best names for cereal combinations. The chance to win prizes was a motivator for many students, and helped to spark creativity.
Combinations like “Golden Reese’s Honey Cheers” were created. One student proudly named his creation Rix, which is a combination of Reese’s and Trix.
Big prizes such as an Apple TV and gift cards to Eastern Michigan University’s bookstore given out to first and second place winners in the cereal naming contest.
There were also some familiar faces from the General Mills cereal world.
Many students had selfies taken with Trix the Rabbit and Lucky the Leprechaun.
A scavenger hunt was also held, with prizes like a digital camera and gift certificates to EMU’s bookstore given out to the first and second place winners. Students Kyle Granger and Luke Brubaker won a GoPro camera and gift cards to the bookstore.
Dining services manager Derek Kell said this event is “just something nice we like to do for the students.”
“It also kicks off our Halloween time of year,” he said “We will be having a Count Chocula costume contest later this month. We had 70 participants last year.”
The event went on from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., when the names of winners were announced. Names were randomly drawn, and prizes were given out.
Some of the winners took home an iPad Air and gift cards to the bookstore. Students were given small prizes such as T-shirts, towels and plastic bowls for knowing the characters’ names.
“We’re here to show students thank you for how much they appreciate our cereal,” General Mills representative Scott Scherer said.