Karen Garcia
Special to Mustang News
The month of February isn’t just about red roses, chocolate hearts and gifts for your significant other — it’s also about Galentine’s Day.
Invented by the main character Leslie Knope (played by Amy Poehler) in the show “Parks and Recreation,” Galentine’s Day celebrates female friends the day before Valentine’s Day.
This concept inspired graphic communication juniors Trudy Vinson and Alyssa Wigant to throw their own Galentine’s Day on Feb. 5.
They promoted feminism with student-designed invitations sporting the slogan “Eliminate Girl Hate,” a phrase created by Vinson and Wigant.
Wigant and Vinson emailed the Smart Girls Organization about their Galentine’s Day event and received not only positive feedback, but interaction from the program as well.
After seeing the invitations that Vinson, Wigant and other student designers created, the Smart Girls Organization, purchased the designs, which are now available on the website as downloadable cards.
The Galentine’s Day event was a success, as well.
“It was made up of two parts, the first part was a UU booth,” Wigant said. “We gave out invitations that girls designed at Cal poly and we gave out candy, nail polish and bumped music. The second part in the evening was ladies’ night.”
The ladies’ night was more of a discussion on feminism and female empowerment, themes that are paramount to Galentine’s Day.
“Ladies’ night was a real discussion about hashing out problems of girl hate and promoting female friendships,” Vinson said. “A lot of the time girls will see each other as competition or judge one another really harshly.”
Vinson and Wigant asked that the funds from the purchase of the cards be given to the Cal Poly Gender Equity Center so that they can host more events such as Galentine’s Day.
For more information about the Smart Girls organization or to download a Galentine’s card for your favorite female, visit amysmartgirls.com.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article stated that the phrase “Eliminate Girl Hate” was taken from Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls. It was actually an original slogan by Vinson and Wigant.