Samantha Stamper’s emotions got the best of her when she saw her fellow Residence Hall Association member walk through the door. She started to cry when she realized what was going on, but her tears quickly turned to happiness.
“We surprised her, she had the biggest smile ever,” Marissa Zanotti, the financial coordinator of RHA, said of Stamper. “She didn’t have enough time to get the RHA of the Year bid done, but a couple of us worked hard on it one night and we were able to kept it a secret until it was time to present the bid.”
Zanotti was part of the team that put the bid together for Michigan Organization on Residence Halls conference, held March 18 to March 20 at the University of Michigan.
“MORHA is the organization that the nine universities with residence halls belong to,” Zanotti said. “We network and learn programs and about how to get residents more involved. This year, we got to bring 21 delegates from Eastern.”
The Eastern Michigan University delegation got to participate in and present workshops throughout the weekend. RHA President Mallory Apel, Zanotti and Stamper presented the “Lets Talk About Sex” and “Indoor Snowball Fight” programs.
While they were presenting, the delegates got to participate in other programs presented by other schools, including: “Do it in the Dark,” “The Trevor Project,” “Icebreakers Extravaganza” and” If You Really Knew Me.”
“The workshops were helpful,” delegate Jessica Holder, a Village resident, said. “They helped me learn a lot about myself and I learned a lot of great ideas for future programs.”
When the delegates weren’t playing and learning new programming to bring back to residents, they were spending time with delegates from other schools.
“We were a bunch of people getting together who wanted to promote the people who live on campus and we had a great time doing it,” delegate Jessica Bailey said. “We got to see how the schools were represented by their RHA’s. It was really cool.”
When it came time for the award ceremony, the EMU delegates were on the edge of their seats with anticipation. And they had every right to be.
EMU’s RHA chapter won a total of 11 awards at MORHA, including: Most Improved RHA, Family Member of the Year, Advisor of the Year, Program of the Year and Commitment to Philanthropy.
And, much to Stamper’s delight, RHA of the Year.
