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It all started as an idea over winter term - a festival to bring students together to enjoy the spring weather. Four months, $1500 and several tweets later, members of the Elon community participated in the first annual "Historic Block Party" this weekend.

Elon junior and residence area coordinator of the Historic neighborhood, Darron Daniels, came up with the idea when working on the neighborhood plan in January.

"I wanted this big outdoor festival of events to take place," Daniels said. "A neighborhood cookout was the base of it."

With the aid of a small committee of students, Daniels was able to plan and advertise the event. With $4,000 at their disposal, the opportunities and options for the weekend were endless.

The event began on Friday with a cookout on the patio between Smith and Carolina and a performance from the Elon World Percussion Ensemble.

"It was your basic barbecue food, and it was lovely," said Elon freshman Amy Hanna.

On Saturday, residents participated in a water gun fight, and the block party committee teamed up with SUB to screen 'RoboCop' under The Oaks at night.

The block party concluded Sunday afternoon with a bounce house, catered brunch on the back porch of West, a little music and plenty of sunshine.

Daniels' motivation for creating the block party was rooted in his desire to create a memorable event for first-year students living in Historic.

"I wanted it to be that big memorable event for first-year students so they can look back and say, 'My first year at Elon we had the Historic neighborhood block party, which was the most fun I had during my first year at Elon,'" Daniels said.

There was also a neighborhood competition with a pizza or donut party for the hall who stayed outside the longest this weekend.

Though attendance was lower than expected, Assistant Director of the Historic Neighborhood, Monet Thomas, believes the event was a success.

"The idea was to have a social event at the end of the year that would bring everyone together one last time in the Historic neighborhood," Monet said.

"The thing that's always funny is that students were like, 'I didn't even know this was happening,' but I feel like we were really good at advertising. Once students saw what was happening, they really enjoyed it."

Students who were in attendance were glad they came.

"I think it's really fun," said Elon freshman Chann Little "It's a whole bunch of people from different grades just getting together before we leave for the summer."

When asked if he would work on the committee for the block party next year, Daniels was completely on board, and has a lot of ideas for next year's celebration.

"There'll probably be more water games," Daniels said. "Probably a water slide."