Drawn by the scent of pepperoni pizza in the common room, I floated towards the towering cardboard boxes on the table for all of LM to feast upon. Finding a spot on a couch, we turned on the TV only to find live coverage of the college football championship game.
Feeds are perfect times for students to relax and rewind after busy days. Given how early dinner is served, it is not surprising that feeds have become an important tradition at Deerfield.
This tradition provides new students with the opportunity to find a smaller community, their dorms, within the Deerfield campus. Charlie Pink ’18 specified, “As a sophomore living on a hall with ten other boys I didn’t know well, I thought I was just going to be in my room watching Netflix. Mr. Stallings made sure this was not the case as he walked into the common room with a massive crock pot filled with his home-cooked jambalaya.” He added, “I would not have had the sense of comfort to get out of my room and interact with people if I didn’t have the excuse to go out and grab some food.”
Appreciating the unity feeds brought, Jack Brown ’18 recalled his freshman year vividly: “The Washburns would host pancake feeds, and they invited the entire dormitory to eat and socialize. Their commitment to bringing the whole dorm together each week gave us an opportunity to establish a strong hall identity.”
In addition to forming connections within halls, feeds can assist in fostering interactions across different classes. Athalie Bastien ’18 noted, “My sophomore year, we had a special feed with Nigel Andrews ’16 and Charlie Carpenter ’16 where we played family feud; I loved meeting upperclassmen boys.”
Finally, feeds are instrumental in creating the familial atmosphere that characterizes each hall whether through humor or hall traditions. A member of the once-legendary hall @poc1isphat, whole motto was “Create aesthetics for other halls to aspire to,” Alli Norris ’18 noted one of her most memorable feed memories was during her freshman year: “My proctors bought root beer from the Greer and tubs of vanilla froyos and we recorded a video pouring the root beer into the fro-yo with ‘Take Me to Church’ playing in the background.”
Also reflecting on defining moments during feeds, Soo Oh ’20 jokingly referred to one Wednesday night when she convinced Doubleday 3 that she had a dog from North Korea.
Andrea Lopez ’19 reminisced about group singalongs, “My entire hall freshman year, Johnson 2, would sing ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ and ‘Lean on Me’ with Bailey Cheetham ’19 and Margaret Williams ’19 as the lead singers and ukulele players.
This reaffirmed our sense of family time and time again.”
Filled with lots of laughs, bonding, and food, feeds are the perfect opportunity to cultivate long lasting friendships with all of the members of the hall.