Students gathered at the south end of the quad Tuesday for Growing Awareness, an event held by the Disability Advocacy Council and the Horticulture Club to raise awareness for disabilities and campus disability services.
Officers of the Horticulture Club provided free succulents and clay pots for students to decorate along with information about different disabilities.
The Disability Advocacy Council is a student organization dedicated to creating and maintaining a support network for students and faculty with the necessary resources to advocate for their needs, according to the group’s Vice President, Sam des Bordes.
“A large part of our club is helping to identify any needs for the disabilities community on campus,” des Bordes said.
The Disability Advocacy Council helps LSU faculty make better decisions about disability resources, des Bordes said.
In the coming weeks, the club will meet with leaders of the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and other campus diversity initiatives to discuss raising awareness for disability resources already available on campus.
In the meantime, the Disability Advocacy Council is using events like Growing Awareness to spread the word. The event coordinator for the club, Kennedy Falcon, spoke about the success of the event.
“A lot of kids were asking questions, like, ‘What is this? What’s that?’ And we would give them a little bit more information and they would be so excited about it,” Falcon said. “I think it’s just a great way to get more people out here and learn.”
Working with the Horticulture Club allowed the event to reach a wider audience, Falcon said.
“I think it’s a good way to get people thinking about disabilities,” President of the Horticulture Club, Makenna Landry, said. “Just to bring it out in the open and make people aware of people that might be different from them, you know?”
Landry said this event is the club’s first collaborative event with another student organization but she hopes to make it a more common occurrence.
Falcon said that besides the club’s goal of raising awareness of disabilities, the event had another benefit: “We had a couple people who have anxiety or get stressed out really easily. And they were saying, ‘Oh my God, this is really relaxing.’” Falcon said. “So even then, it’s just a good stress relief.”
LSU students decorate their pots using stickers and paint pens.
