After cancelling the event last year due to scheduling issues, AFS managed to make its trip to the Britt’s Farm Pumpkin Patch this year for their Fall Festival. With over 40 members showing up to the event, all club members enjoyed the night of fire, s’mores and mazes.

“I enjoyed it a lot,” senior club member Peri Carney said. “It was a lot of fun making s’mores and the hay ride, going back to where the bonfire was and the corn maze. The Scary Corn Maze was actually fun. I ate the dirt a little bit during the maze. I was trying to run away and someone still had my hand so then I just fell straight into the ground. It was funny, I’m ok. It was fun, I’d do it again.”

The AFS Fall Festival is held to help show exchange students some ways Americans celebrate autumn.

“I think over in, around the world, there are actually different [fall] activities,” club sponsor Tony Wichmann said. “So, Halloween and how we celebrate and so forth, gives [exchange students] exposure to how we celebrate Halloween. In some cases, we have actually had pumpkin carving contests.”

With some help from their adult chapter, AFS members were able to enjoy attempting to roast marshmallows over an intense bonfire.

“Okay, that fire was so big so it was really hot,” Carney said. “It was really hard to find a good place to go, without getting too hot, to roast the marshmallows. There was like one spot because there was a tree trunk and there were other branches around it. So, we had to go around it and hide behind the big tree trunk so it wasn’t so hot but then that’s where all the smoke was going. So, it was fun. It was very interesting trying to get around the heat and smoke.”

The club members were able to relax and bond with each other around the fire as well as enjoy a night view away from the town’s lights.

“Of course, I talked a lot with my friends,” junior exchange student Kō Saito said. “I loved the view in Manhattan. I saw sunset and a lot of stars and it was so awesome.”