American River College will host Fem Fest, a campus-wide Wednesday, March 26 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. to celebrate Women’s History Month. The event will include a Care Fest hosted by Beaver Cares, a women’s march and the Student Senate will provide information about the upcoming Associated Student body elections.
Lindsie Kotcher, a student support specialist at the ARC Arts Homebase, is also the event’s coordinator. She says that the women’s march celebrates the women leaders of ARC. In 2024, everyone who participated walked around campus for thirty minutes.
“It was a fun way to get out, enjoy nature and walk with the women leaders that we have on campus,” Kotcher said.
The march will begin at 11:30 a.m. at the south entrance of the Student Center, where the dinosaur statue, Diesel-zilla, is located. Notable women leaders of ARC, such as President Lisa Cardoza and Liz Geisser, PRIDE Program student support assistant, have been invited to speak a few words.
Nizhoni Ellenwood, one of ARC’s Native American Resource Center student support specialists, will speak on behalf of the missing Indigenous women, and her students will also have a mini performance, Kotcher said.
While the march is going on, Beaver Cares will be hosting Care Fest in the STEM quad from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Valerie Adger, student support supervisor with Beaver Cares, says that Care Fest will give students access to local nonprofits and organizations that also offer basic needs and services as well as mental and physical health services.
“We have everything from veteran’s resources to Sacramento library to the blood source,” Adger said. “We have a mixture of a lot of different types of Community Partners, so students know what’s out there.”
Of the 40 community partners that have been invited, 18 have RSVPed. Adger is hoping for 25 tables to be present in the STEM quad, handing out resourceful information to curious students.
ARC’s Student Senate will have a table set up in the Student Center from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. to provide information about the Associated Student Body elections for the 2025-26 academic year. The application for students interested in joining the student senate is due April 2 at 5 p.m. while the election dates are April 22 and April 23.
According to Soraya Amin, the election committee chair, all positions are open except for both student senate president and club and events board president. Only students a part of ASB can run for both presidencies.
“There’s a requirement of having served a year,” said Amin. “If no one from the board wants to run for president, then anyone can.”
There will be more to the event, according to Kotcher, as she is working on getting inflatables. Other resource centers, such as the Unite Center, have activities as well.
For more information, visit the ARC’s student senate website, the calendar and events website and the Beaver Cares website.
