Although many off-campus students have outgrown floor meetings and dining hall food, they still may want an opportunity to meet their neighbors.

The fifth-annual Taste of Westcott occurred last night at the Westcott Community Center on the corner of Euclid and Westcott streets. Off-Campus Student Services sponsored the event, which allowed off-campus students to meet one another and get to know community organizations and restaurants.

‘Hopefully they can meet people that can help them while they are off-campus – like the police, the fire department and counseling services,’ said OCSS Director Laura Madelone, who expected between 250 and 300 students to attend the event.

The organizations that came were excited to introduce and include the students in their community.

Starke Donnally, a representative from the Westcott East Neighborhood Association, said that while this was his third year involved in a Taste of Westcott, he has lived in the neighborhood his whole life.

‘We love to have students here,’ Donnally said. ‘We love the diversity and people here and want to get to know the students better. This is a neighborhood that we want to be full of dialogue.’

Dave Barrette, police captain in the Westcott area neighborhood, hopes that bringing the community together can help with the reduction of crime levels in the neighborhood.

‘Our purpose is to educate the students about safety crime prevention and get them involved in what goes on,’ Barrette said.

Three tents were set up outside the community center. One distributed recycling bins, another had tables to eat at and the last gave information on different services available to students.

Along with more than 15 organizations, every restaurant located on Westcott Street provided free food for the students who came. Madelone said that this year the event offered a better variety of food.

‘Instead of only having pizza and wings, we also have food like ziti and falafel,’ Madelone said.

The students had various reasons for coming to the event.

Jamie Gaul, a senior advertising design major, said the event sparked an interest in the surrounding area of Syracuse.

‘We didn’t want to limit ourselves to the campus community,’ Gaul said. ‘We wanted to open ourselves up to what our surroundings are.’

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Published on August 27, 2003 at 12:00 pm