On Oct. 20, Chaminade Student Programming Board (CSPB) held its first commuter breakfast in the Henry Hall Courtyard. This event welcomed any current Chaminade students who commute to campus. CSPB created this event with hope to get commuter students more involved in activities around campus.

Chaminade alumnus and owner of Koa Cafe, Juno Chung, provided the breakfast for this event. This breakfast included: fried rice, portuguese sausage, bacon, guava lava waffles, and scrambled eggs. This hearty breakfast served the students who attended this event. Set up in a buffet-style breakfast, students were able to portion their own food and choose their preferred dishes. The fried rice seemed to be the most popular of the food dishes served.

“It was so nice of the owner of Koa Cafe to provide this yummy breakfast for us as Chaminade students,” said Hannah Sablan, a senior at Chaminade who commutes to campus from nearby Date Street. “It really was a great breakfast and a good time for me to just sit and enjoy a meal for once because normally I am so busy and can’t spare a moment like this.”

Most commuter students do not show up to the events that CSPB and CSGA (Chaminade Student Government Association) hold throughout the day, because they leave after their morning classes and come back to campus for their evening classes. This makes it difficult for CSPB to get a hold of these commuter students and build student-to-student relationships with them.

“It went really well,” said senior Dior-Ashton Teodosio. “I think it’s a good way to get commuter students involved on campus, and having Koa Cafe sponsor and work with CSPB was really cool.”

This whole idea came about when vice president of Programming Jerri Francisco acknowledged the fact that commuter students, especially those who live far from campus, get to school early and sit in their cars. This trend has been going on a lot, she realized, and she wanted to be able to get those students out of their cars, socializing with other students, and getting more involved on campus.

“Especially coming from someone who was up at 5 a.m. to go to soccer practice, it’s really awesome. I was headed to my moped when I got the text from my friend saying there was free food at the courtyard, so walked up the hill and was pleased to see a great breakfast,” said Mitchell Fasolo, a senior soccer player. “It’s not just a free breakfast, it looks like a quality breakfast so that’s awesome. Now I don’t need to worry about getting breakfast. I just can go home, get ready for school, start my day, so really helpful I really appreciate it.”

The turnout for this event was much larger than CSPB had planned for. Francisco was pleased to see that students took advantage of this opportunity to not only eat but to socialize.

“We only targeted for about 40 people, and we have like about 60 something people on our roster so I’m really happy,” she said.

CSPB and Campus Ministry are looking forward to holding more similar events to this in the future based on such a great turnout and good feedback on the event. CSPB will be holding a Halloween event on Monday, October 31, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the Vi and Paul Loo Center.