The USF school year has just begun and we’re incredibly excited to have a new, amazing group of residents. To kick off a great year at The Retreat at Tampa, we planned a calendar jam-packed with a variety of residence life events to give our residents and their friends the opportunity to meet and mingle with their neighbors, and to enjoy spending time in our luxury amenities.
Week 1 – Grab and Go Chick-Fil-A Breakfast
For our first resident event, we held a Grab and Go Chick-Fil-A Breakfast in our Café and Bistro space. This offered a great opportunity for new and existing residents to get a hot and fresh meal and mingle with neighbors and friends before school started the following week. Residents enjoyed the breakfast spread and a chance to direct questions to our staff who passed out the biscuits. We had over 75 residents come visit us on their first Friday morning and share with us how their move in day was. This gave us a great chance to check in and ask how everyone settled in. This was a fun kick off to our semester!
Week 2 – Do-It-Yourself Tie Dye
Week two, we held a Do-It-Yourself Tie Dye event set up in our Community Clubhouse for residents to get creative and bond with new roommates. We offered attendees a variety of shirts to choose from and demonstrated one example they could try for their own designs. There was also a great guide included in the kit we displayed for anyone brave to try out more adventurous designs, and stand out from the crowd. Over 15 residents joined us to make their own unique tie-dye to take home. We purchased the supplies on Amazon and gave the link to a few residents who want to try it friends later – this is a great activity to get creative and show off your art skills!
Week 3 – School Supplies Drive
During our third week of resident events, we held a very popular School Supplies Drive in our study lounge booths, with PDQ catered and served by staff in our Clubhouse Cafe! Our staff set up a large spread of school supplies for students to choose much needed notebooks, highlighters, and more before the semester buckles down. After picking up some complimentary supplies, about 60 residents also received catered PDQ to help motivate them to conquer their classes and enjoy some good food with neighbors! This event was made possible by our local PDQ who provided the food, as well as coupons for residents to use during their next visit. This event kept on giving!
Week 4 – Wellness Wednesday
For our fourth resident event, we held a Wellness Wednesday bar in our spacious Clubhouse for residents to select some goodies to take home for self-care! College is stressful enough, and we encouraged our hard working residents to pick from our aromatic wellness supplies such as face masks, bath bombs and more, to decompress and take care of themselves. Over 50 residents stopped by to make their own gift bag, and treat themselves to a night of relaxation!
Week 5 – Grocery Bingo
Week five, we held a Grocery Bingo night in our spacious Recreation Room in the top floor of our Clubhouse! Our Community Ambassadors had a great time hosting three rounds of Bingo upstairs, and our winners went home with gift cards to take themselves grocery shopping for a fridge restock! We had about 20 residents join us in person for a chance to win, this was a great time to get to know our residents better and enjoy some friendly competition!
Week 6 – Voter Registration
Our very last week of our 6 in 6 events, we held a Voter Registration event headquartered in our Clubhouse. We strongly encourage our residents to become involved in the local community, and what better way than to help them get registered to vote for the next opportunity here in Hillsborough County. We printed the voter registration forms and distributed them to all residents in their mailboxes, as well as a digital link via email to encourage enrollment. We offered a chance to win a gift card as a reward for completing the registration and dropping off the completed form in our office collection box, or submitting electronic proof of completion through social media. We had about 25 residents enter to win and turn in the completed registration forms, and staff sent them out to the county!
Our team has had such an amazing time getting to meet our residents over the past 6 weeks. Here at Retreat at Tampa, we strive to create the best experience in USF off campus housing and hosting a variety of awesome resident events is just one part of achieving that. Keep an eye out for more events to come, we’re looking forward to a great year!
