“Henna at home with GiGi” was a collaboration event done on Zoom with CF’s Student Life Committee and the Appleton Museum. This event had been hosted on Wednesday, September 23 by GiGi, Appleton’s staff, and has given students the chance to create a henna design either on themselves or a friend. 

For this henna event, CF provided one henna kit per student while requiring these students to bring their student ID. These kits contained of the henna cone, six practice sheets, two craft sticks and two toothpicks. 

Henna art is a multicultural temporary tattoo that consists of various ingredient, such as aqua, henna, benzyl alcohol, terpineol, eugenia, caryophyllus oil, and eucalyptus species leaf oil. This tattoo can last about one to two weeks, depending on how long it stays on the skin, and it will appear in a variation of reds and browns. 

Students were instructed to be careful of what the henna touches, because it will stain everything it touches. They were also told that they will need to wait one hour before removing the henna, but they could keep it on their skin for ten hours for maximum color. 

GiGi went through all the instructions on the practice sheets step-by step and let participants feel free to use the kits on themselves whenever they were confident enough. 

According to Marjorie McGee, faculty, the student life committee was able to distribute around 130 kits. “We had prepared 150 to be shared across all three campuses. We had just under 50 students join us on the Zoom,” said McGee. 

Many students were interested in learning about henna art. Especially to some, it gave them the chance to test their own artistic skills. 

“I enjoyed learning more about henna and getting the opportunity to draw it on myself using the henna tube. It was also cool to see the amazing henna drawings other students did on their arms and hands,” Audriana Webber, student. 

Many students expected that they will be shown how to properly work henna. This let them test if they could continue this activity in the future. 

“My expectations for this event was to find out if Henna could be a potential activity for me, to find out if I would really enjoy this activity, and to see if I would want to incorporate this activity into my list of hobbies. My expectations were definitely met! I enjoyed doing henna a lot and saw myself continuing it,” said Maya Thomas, student. 

Students could receive their henna kits at all of CF’s campuses, varying between the days. The Ocala Campus offered the kits outside of the bookstore on September 14, September 17, September 19, and September 22.  

The Citrus Campus offered these kits at building C4 on September 14, September 17, and September 22. The Levy Campus only offered these kits in the lobby on September 17, unless a student were to contact Kat Davis, faculty, to make arrangements. 

Due to this current world’s situation, the Student Life Committee is currently brainstorming various interactive activities that could be held virtually that will help students focus on more than just listening. 

The Appleton will be hosting another event over Zoom on October 21 at 12:45 p.m. This event gives students the chance to make their own coaster. “Students will be able to pick up the art kits for this event the week of October 12th,” said McGee.