HATTER SATURDAY is Saturday, Apr. 16! Stetson University will welcome approximately 1,500 special guests to the DeLand campus, including 500 accepted students and their families for a day of fun, fellowship, community engagement and learning more about Stetson and the many opportunities available to them here.

This year, new students will have the opportunity to learn about how they can get involved in life at Stetson University by visiting the faculty and academic program showcase as well as the Community Showcase with more than 100 student-led organizations represented.

Each year the new Hatters also participate in a community engagement activity in which they will pack 20,000 nutritious meal boxes for hungry children internationally, as well as in Central Florida, in cooperation with the Feeding Children Everywhere non-profit organization.

Feeding Children Everywhere is a social non-profit that empowers and mobilizes people to assemble healthy meals for hungry children all over the world. Food packages and donations go to orphanages and public schools in over four continents. Stetson alumna Kristen Campbell, co-founder, and her husband Don Campbell, founder and chief executive officer of the international organization, brought this program to Stetson and it has become a big part of Hatter Saturday.

“Hatter Saturday is unique,” said Joel Bauman, Stetson’s vice president for enrollment management. “Through this community outreach program, we actually live out our values with our new students by creating thousands of meals that will help solve some of the most complex local and global problems such as hunger and nutrition. Stetson was the first university to do this at an open house, and only one of a handful of schools that participate in the international project currently,” said Bauman.

“I strongly encourage every new student to jump-start your leadership skills by engaging with student organizations even before your classes start,” said Bauman. “And, this is only one of many community engagement programs offered at Stetson in which we dare students to be significant.”

Visit Hatter Saturday 2016 for more information, or call Stetson’s Office of Admissions at (386) 822-7100.

Also happening this weekend:

• Theatre: Student-Directed, One-Act Play Festival, a Stetson Theatre Arts production at the Museum of Art- DeLand, 600 N. Woodland Blvd., across from Chaudoin Hall
• Art: Opening Reception for Digital Arts Senior Exhibition 2016 (Friday at 6 p.m.); and Oscar Bluemner’s Germany: Youth and Return, Hand Art Center
• Music: Concert Choir, Timothy Peter, conductor, Friday, 7:30 p.m., Lee Chapel; University Symphonic Band, Douglas Phillips, conductor – Saturday, Lee Chapel, 7:30 p.m. School of Music
• Earth Week Activities: Science Saturday at Gillespie Museum, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
• Athletics: Women’s Softball v Lipscomb, Patricia Wilson Field, Saturday, 1 p.m., 3:30 p.m. GOHATTERS.COM