*crowd noise*

Angela Santos: Campus looks a little different on this February day. People hold bouquets of flowers in their arms and combinations of pink, red, and white are on full display. Further up along campus, a line stretches out from the Texas Union Patio. Thousands of students received an email notification over the past weeks.

*email alert*

Angela: The subject line says, “Someone sent you a Crushgram,” and additional pick-up information.

Crushgrams are free and requested through a form. Students can send a bottle of Crush Soda and a special message, and the first 1,000 attendees get to pick between a flower and soda

It’s Valentine’s Day now, and students are picking up Crushgrams gifted by their partners, friends, or roommates, and a lot of students were surprised, like senior RTF major Samantha Pearl.

Samantha Perl: I was very surprised. I was like, “Oh, wow!” Like, I’m surprised I got one because I’ve never heard of it before, and, and I was like, “Oh, this is pretty cool!” I had no idea who I could have gotten it from, but it made me feel good.

Angela: Events + Entertainment hosts the event, and Stephanie Diep, the vice president of publicity and senior marketing major said this year’s turnout spiked. 

Stephanie Diep: Last year, we had a little over 3,000 — I believe 3,200 something — individual messages. And this year again, we’re over 6,000 messages. Yeah, officially. So we very quickly doubled.

Angela: She said a lot of work goes into preparing the Crushgrams 

Stephanie: There’s a table for putting the stickers on the envelopes. There’s a table for alphabetizing. There’s a table for like stuffing the Crushgrams. There’s a table for tying little notes, the little cards to the bottles. And then obviously, we double check and triple check everything like. Yeah, so it’s like, it’s a lot, the entire —  if you’ve ever been to the E + E office, the entire office gets taken over by just Crushgrams. And it’s like, it just goes down a line. Just whoever can volunteer where.

Angela: Each note is also read by Campus Events + Entertainment members to ensure a safe and enjoyable experience.

Stephanie: Yeah, just in case if there’s any, like, really creepy ones, or any ones that were like, ooh, like, we’re a little hesitant on because I mean, we’re responsible for the whole thing. And we want to make sure that students when they’re receiving a message, it’s like a safe, fun environment, and so we do read the messages. There are some really cute ones in there

Angela: Others who picked up Crushgrams told me why they enjoyed the event. Sophomore mechanical engineering major Trevor Van Heusen said it isn’t just about romance. It’s for everyone to celebrate.

Trevor Van Heusen: I think we should do it every year. I think it gives us a good reason to celebrate even if you don’t have a Valentine for no good reason you can hang out with your friends and celebrate so I think it’s a great thing to have.

Angela: Brianna Lopez, a senior corporate communications spoke about her favorite part of the event

Brianna Lopez:  I think honestly, the experience itself. I…we see there’s so many people here. We’ve been sitting here for like quite a while, and I think the favorite part of the Crushgrams is not just like getting one but also seeing everybody else get one. You know, it’s good to see that people are still getting these kinds of things, even as small as like the four-letter note that I’d got like, I love that.

*crowd noise*

Angela: This story was a production of The Daily Texan Audio Department. It was reported by Angela Santos and Edly Termilien, hosted by Angela Santos and edited by Aislyn Gaddis. The cover art is by Michele Pinilla. If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure to subscribe to The Daily Texan on your streaming platform of choice and follow us on Twitter @texanaudio. Thanks for listening!