As the sun began to set, students and families strolled through the different games, food stands, and booths, each offering unique crafts and engaging activities.

On Friday, April 18 the University Student Union (USU) held its annual Night Market at the USU in celebration of creativity, art and community. The event featured different food vendors such as Sweet Snow, Cena Vegan, All about Yaki, Under the Bun, New York Chicken and Gyro and The Churro Man.

The market featured student vendors selling a variety of items including clothes, art, key chains, ceramics, crocheted animals and more. Among the vendors was graduate student Leon Cheo, who sold ceramics from his shop Shhleon Ceramics.

“I think it’s an awesome opportunity, especially being in the art department, you know, sometimes you don’t mix with the other departments.” said Cho. “This is a cool opportunity to talk to other students and other departments and really build that community as a school.”

The event also offered a variety of activities for attendees to enjoy such as golf, ping pong, balloon making, henna, face painting, photo booths and a raffle.

Jenny Phan and Naylea Gomez, student assistant event coleades of the USU Night Market, say after seeing how successful the event was going, they were happy to see that the hard work of the 17-week planning process paid off.

Gomez said she wanted to give a reason for students to come to campus for a fun time, not only school and work. “We wanted to bring something for students that are not always here because of school, something that is not related to school. As she mentioned for the commuter students, I know this is a really big event,” said Gomez.

Phan says as a creative person herself, finding student vendors on campus was important to include at the Night Market to give them a platform to showcase their small businesses.

“I know that I’m a person who enjoys a lot of creative bursts in everything. So finding out if there’s student vendors on campus, I really wanted to include them into our event. That’s been my favorite part is to have students feel seen and heard not only through their academics, but through their artistic freedom,” said Phan.

About 95% of CSUN students are commuters, so Phan says events such as the Night Market are important for CSUN so students can feel a sense of belonging and community.

Victoria Hernandez, a second-year Chemistry major, won third place in the raffle and took home an electric scooter. As a student who commutes more than an hour to CSUN, she shared that she appreciates the opportunity to come to campus and celebrate with the community during events like the Night Market and not just for school.

“Especially where I’m from, I live kind of like not super rural, but being able to come out here and see a community somewhere in the valley is really nice and just seeing other things like crafts and stuff at school, outside of school,” said Hernandez.

“We know that this is mainly a commuter school and so we do want to prevent that type of feeling that, you know, all students [don’t] belong,” said Phan. “So having an event like this allows them to come and stay on campus and see what we can really offer for the students.”

For more information about events from the USU, visit their website or instagram page.