College students can have fun without the consumption of alcohol.

On Oct. 23, a program called E Ho‘Opili No Na Haumana (“to come together for the students”) collaborated with Student Support Services and came up with “Happy Hour” at the Loo Student Center as part of National Colligate Alcohol Awareness Week. Happy Hour was an event that informed and encouraged the students of Chaminade to be aware of alcohol abuse while enjoying free food, non-alcoholic drinks and playing games.

Kacie Cohen, the project coordinator for Haumana was one of people that made happy hour a reality.

“We thought we would put together an event for non-alcohol drinks and different ways in which you can party at the same time,” Cohen said.

A mocktail bar was made for the students and faculty. The bar included non-alcoholic mojitos, Arnold Palmers, piña coladas and cranberry spritzers. Half an hour into the event, the mojitos and piña coladas were the popular drinks, so much so that they were all gone just a few minutes later.

Also, a game of punch pong was played. This game is not like the beer pong that students knows. The rules of beer pong applies with punch pong with a little twist. First, the cups were filled with water instead of fruit punch. Second, instead of having a pyramid of 10 cups, only three cups were placed at the center-end of the table each side. Finally, once a player from one team threw a ping-pong ball inside the cup, the player from the other team drank a cup of fruit punch and read a fact about alcohol awareness week.

Students Amber Alvarez and Ashley Augustin played against Campus Ministry staff members Brother Brandon Alana and Brother Mark Motz.

“80 percent of college students drink alcohol,” Brother Mark said.

The next game was mixology, with mixing drinks into a cocktail was the object of the game. However, the creations of the drinks were limited from the supplies of the mocktail bar. Kryssy Samson was one of the contestants for the game and made a fruity drink. Her thoughts on the event were that it’s enjoyable to play alcoholic games without the alcohol.

“I like how they made it about alcohol awareness,” she said.

Alcohol abuse can lead to alcohol poisoning, and death when is come to the worst. Potential suicide is another name to call it when the time comes. Dale Fryxell, a Chaminade professor of psychology, is the director for the Haumana project and for the suicide prevention program. Being federal funded, Fryxell took the opportunity to run the program, thus the Happy Hour providing an example of suicide prevention with alcohol awareness.

“We are focusing on positive and mental health,” he said. “Not so much on suicide prevention, but building someone’s self-esteem, their coping mechanisms so that they have internal resources they need so suicide doesn’t look like a good option.”

From the development of the event, Cohen worked with the Student Support Services director Allison Jerome. Both of them were discussing on what approach would work for the awareness week.

Earlier into October, signs about the facts of alcohol that were used for the punch pong game were put up around campus. Once happy hour began, many students attended. Even the two brothers of the campus ministry went and had a great time.

“We’ll definitely do it again,” Jerome said. “This was something we wanted to try just to raise awareness. We recognize that students drink, and the point was we wanted students to be able to make responsible choices about drinking….next year we may do something different, or we do the same thing again,”