Drew Night Life hosted a petting zoo event outside of the Ehinger Center Friday, Sept. 20, featuring an array of friendly animals and a stuff-a-plush activity. Crowds of students hurried to connect with Drew’s furry guests, including bunnies, ducks, goats and even a donkey.
Although the event started at 8 p.m., students were already starting to gather at the picnic tables on the Ehinger Center’s patio about half an hour before the event started. The anticipation built as a line formed near the check-in table, everyone hoping to get one of the 100 stuffed animals available for attending students and their families. As this was one of the first events of Drew’s family weekend, little siblings and parents accompanied their Rangers in the growing line. Taunting awaiting students were heaps of white cotton stuffing and the limp shells of stuffed animals on the tables just past where students would need to scan in.
When the clock finally struck eight and the event commenced, rangers made mad dashes for the stuff-a-plush table, where they could stuff either a small cow or lamb plushie to take home with them.
Once finished making the plush, students entered the small gated area where the real animals awaited their attention. All petting zoo animals were brought to Drew by Happy Trails Ponies, and for the mother duck and her two ducklings, it was their first time being brought to such an event.
Due to this, they were a little more evasive, shown by how they weaved between the legs of students. Whenever one of the babies lost sight of its family, it would quack in bewilderment, earning a collective “awww” from the attentive event audience.
One student took a seat next to the mother duck, tentatively reaching out to pet her. Eventually she was able to hold her in her arms. “I’m so proud of myself. I’ve been trying to befriend her all night. Literally just all the animals. Any of the birds, I don’t know why but I just love birds.” said Adrianna Padula (‘27), as Daisy the duck settled against her chest. “I like meeting animals that hate everybody and trying to be their friend.”
However, while the ducks did get their moment in the limelight as Padula doted on them, the bunnies seemed to be the most popular animals of the night. With an array of coat colors and patterns, varying in age and size, the bunnies skipped around the grass, twitching their noses idly until inevitably being picked up by a Drew ranger. Marshmallow, a bunny with pure white fur and soft red eyes, seemed always to be in the arms of somebody, passed from person to person until let back down to munch on the trampled hay. Each bunny found a rapt audience among the students, receiving lots of compliments, pets and attention, while the donkey was brushed and the goats offered branches of a nearby tree to eat leaves off of.
Every Drew student and family member left the petting zoo with a smile on their face. The stress of the week’s classes or the day’s travel to campus melted away as they became endeared to all of the visiting animals.
Evelyn Labbé is a first-year exploring academically.
Featured image courtesy of the DNL instagram, @drewstuact.
