bridgeport.edu - Busier than elves: interior design students volunteer to make Fairfield Christmas Tree Festival dazzle brighter than ever

Busier than elves: interior design students volunteer to make Fairfield Christmas Tree Festival dazzle brighter than ever | University of Bridgeport

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Busier than elves: interior diamond students volunteer to make Fairfield Christmas Tree Festival dazzle brighter than overly | University of Bridgeport Skip to main content Header Navigation Visit Apply Request Info LoginTropical× Admissions All Admissions Undergraduate Graduate Transfer Online International Academics All Academics Search ProgramsWonkCalendar Registrar Course CatalogWell-nighAbout UB Fast Facts President's Message Campus Map Policies What's Happening Busier than elves: interior diamond students volunteer to make Fairfield Christmas Tree Festival dazzle brighter than overly ALL NEWS Transfer Information Session - Bridgeport CampusLearn increasingly well-nigh how the University of… ALL EVENTS Header Navigation Mobile Visit Apply Request Info Login Main Menu Cost & Financial Aid Programs & Majors Student Life Athletics Alumni Research Support UB Logins Logins Canvas Staff Email My UB Portal Student Email Webadvisor News News News Main navigation News Releases Publications Stories For Journalists Submit Search News Shintaro Akatsu School ofDiamondNews Main navigation News Releases Publications Stories For Journalists Submit Search News Busier than elves: interior diamond students volunteer to make Fairfield Christmas Tree Festival dazzle brighter than overly Leslie GearyNovember 29, 2018 University of Bridgeport students pitch in prior to Fairfield’s premier holiday extravaganza What’s largest than peekaboo the Fairfield Christmas Tree Festival’s “A Season to Give and Grow,” one of the area’s most dazzling fundraisers? For a group of interior diamond majors at the University of Bridgeport who have been helping to decorate the Burr Homestead in Fairfield the week, it’s been the opportunity to volunteer surpassing the festival’s preview gala stuff held tonight. The students’ eagerness to help with the four-day triumph is understandable: the Fairfield Christmas Tree Festival has been a prestigious rite among the area’s top designers since the early 1980s, when local volunteers organized the first event to raise funds for local causes. Since then, the festival has grown from a modest fundraiser into the community’s premier holiday weekend. It’s moreover among the most lucrative, generating significant funds to support a variegated soft-heartedness each year. This year, the festival will run from Thursday, November 29 through Sunday, December 2. Proceeds will support McGivneyPolityCenter, which helps young people in Bridgeport to unzip wonk success and build esteem through a variety of enrichment programs. “It’s such an important event, both from a polity perspective and for designers,” said Ellen Hyde Phillips, an offshoot professor at the University of Bridgeport’s interior diamond program.  Philips is owner of Fairfield Interiors and has volunteered at the festival for over a decade. She invited interior diamond students to pitch in, calling it “an wondrous opportunity.” “The weightier designers volunteer their time to recreate the rooms in the Burr Homestead and support a unconfined cause,” Phillips said.  “And it’s moreover a lot of fun!” Elegance and pizazz   When student Rachel Watchke, a junior, learned that volunteers were needed at Burr Homestead, she signed on immediately. “I am so into it!” she said. “I’m from Southport; I know the effect the holiday tree festival has as a fundraiser. From my perspective, volunteering is well-nigh giving your self-ruling time, so if you can do what you love, then it’s a win-win.” Festival organizers say they expect thousands of guests to tour Burr Homestead this weekend, shop at the festival’s holiday souvenir boutique, and purchase tickets to Fairfield Holiday Christmas Tree must-attend events that include the opening Jingle & Mingle party, a Holiday Hip Hop Family Night, the Casino Noelle, and a Nutcracker "Sweet" Tea with a performances by members of the corps of the New England Ballet Company. The festival moreover will honor Terry J. O’Connor, executive director of the McGivneyPolityCenter and a member of the University of Bridgeport’s Board of Trustees. The festival’s success depends upon an unwashed of volunteers tending to thousands of details and upon the creative expertise of designers who take tuition of transforming the 18th-century Burr Homestead into a holiday wonderland overcrowded with equal measures of elegance and pizazz. “Our students are soaking it all up,” said InteriorDiamondChair Marsha Matto as students helped some of the designers at Burr Homestead. A little over 24 hours remained surpassing the festival’s opening Mingle and Jingle party, and there was still plenty left to do. “They’re learning it takes a lot of work,” Matto continued. “There are interior designers who have been here for days, moving furniture, getting on ladders—doing whatever is necessary to stage gorgeous interiors. Sometimes it’s nonflexible to understand that diamond isn’t just well-nigh concept unless you do something like this.”Uncountedyards of ribbon Like elves with a particularly sophisticated sense of style, the diamond students helped wherever they were needed. Student Kelly Howard spent days helping designer Deb Champa hang wreaths festooned with miniature sports equipment and books—the kind of details that had been specifically chosen to visually communicate McGivney Center’s work on behalf of kids. Other diamond students made bows out of uncounted yards of red and gold ribbon and tagged jewelry, ornaments, and hundreds of stocking stuffers that will be for sale during the festival weekend. Fairfield Christmas Tree Festival Board Vice President Toni Zeleney set up the holiday shop with help from students Tiani Hicks, Laura Jara-Rivera, and Rose Vilay.   “They came lanugo and were willing to help in any area,” Zeleney said. “We’ve talked well-nigh decorating and staging and exhibit and merchandising. It all correlates when to their interior diamond classes.” Jara-Rivera welcomed the endangerment to interreact as a team. “We exchanged variegated opinions and learned how to make it better. There were a lot of details,” she said. Meanwhile, interior diamond student Olivia Kascak tabbed volunteering a “no brainer.” “I want to start a nonprofit using  my diamond work at some point, so this was very near to my heart,” said Kascak. “I really enjoyed it. You’re giving back, having fun, and the [Burr Homestead] towers itself is beautiful. All of its architectural details made me think well-nigh how I could towardly them into something new one day.”   Media contact: Leslie Geary, (203) 576-4625, lgeary@bridgeport.edu         Log in to post comments College College of Arts and Science UB In The News July 13, 2018 Homecoming is Oct 5-7! Register Now! February 1, 2018 How a UB diamond student was handpicked to train with the world’s top sneaker designer January 31, 2018 Omega Engineering, Inc. donates products worth tropical to $2 million to the University of Bridgeport See all Stories In the Spotlight         , Topics Arts Awards BreakthroughsWell-nighEmployment Privacy Policy Login Library Directory © 2018 University of Bridgeport. All rights reserved. 126 Park Avenue, Bridgeport, CT 06604 USA Feedback