Cerritos College kicked off the holiday season with its free, annual Santa’s Village event on Dec. 7th for the public to take pictures with Santa and participate in a variety of holiday-themed arts and crafts.
This event was open to both students and the surrounding community of the college.
Attendees could take free photos with Santa and enjoy drawing booths, arts and crafts, face painting, free sweet treats and hot cocoa, games and food from the Taco Bite food truck.
Dr. Jose Fierro, the president of Cerritos College, attended the village and said that the idea was to have 2 annual events where the public can participate in campus events – one in the spring and another in the winter.
“We wanted to open the campus to the community,” he said, “so they can see the changes we have made on campus, we couldn’t have made those changes without the help of the community… this is the least that we can do.”
Fierro wanted to thank the surrounding community for their continued support and trust in its services to students as the college has been undergoing renovations and construction, such as the Health Science building and the Student Services Administration building,
As noted on its website, one of the college’s values is to “Promote respect and trust in all people regardless of background, including students, community members and employees.”
When entering the event, community members were greeted by Chelsea Van Doonum, the director of public relations, and Toni Grijalva, the community relations coordinator, at an informational booth about Cerritos College.
They gave out candy and a variety of different brochures to promote the college and its activities.
Van Doonum stated, “One of the goals of the Board of Trustees is to have events like these… we’ve had movie events for families so this is more of an open house type of feeling… we just wanted to invite the community to have fun with us.”
Having Santa’s village was the college’s way of saying thank you to the community.
“We’re having such a good time… my parents came to college here, so did my sister and husband… it’s so nice to see all the changes and familiar faces,” Maegan Moo, a community member, said as she and her daughter were creating holiday arts and crafts.
The main event of Santa’s village was for the kids to take pictures with Santa inside the college’s Fine Arts building.
Santa welcomed plenty of kids with a smile and asked them what they wished for this holiday season.
Avery Moo, Maegan’s daughter, excitedly said she asked Santa for “an Ariel princess castle water slide!”
Another community member, Angelica Zambrano, visited Santa’s Village because her son is a student and she also used to attend Cerritos College and visit several events.
Her daughter, Claire, simply asked Santa for some candy.
