As thousands of students made their way past the UA Mall on the second day of classes, 150 clubs set up recruiting and information booths to sign up new members.

The clubs, which were brought together by the Associated Students of the University of Arizona, began setting up their booths long before the event started at 10 a.m. on Tuesday. The student government hosts a club fair at the beginning of each semester.

“Getting involved has been really great for me,” said Danielle Novelly, executive vice president of ASUA. “I’m a senior now and I’ve loved every year that I’ve been involved in various things.”

Novelly, who first got involved with ASUA as an event planner in her sophomore year, organized the fair.

“I think it’s really awesome the amount of clubs and the wide variety of clubs,” Novelly said. “There’s a bit of everything here, and obviously this is a small amount of our clubs because we have over 500 [clubs at the UA].”

Throughout the fair, Holly Scoggin, a psychology junior, staffed a booth for Operation Smile, an on-campus club that is part of a larger global organization. Scoggin said she is passionate about the club’s mission of sending surgeons overseas to repair cleft lips and pallets because her cousin was born with a cleft pallet. She got involved with the club when she first began attending the UA.

Because students are typically in a rush or react negatively to pushy people, Scoggin took a different approach to draw people to her table, she said.

“If they seem interested I try to talk to them; if not I don’t try to pull them into the table and harass them, because that pushes a lot of people away,” Scoggin said. “I get a lot of people coming up here and complaining about that.”

Another participant, Paul Hawkins, a film and television senior, worked to recruit members for the Tucson Animation Screening Society. Hawkins said he first heard about the society through a previous club fair held on the Mall. He said his club helps create friendships.

“The Tucson Animation Screening Society is a club that likes to make friends,” Hawkins said. “Anime is our glue — that’s what keeps us together — but we’re actually a club of friends.”

Novelly said that overall, participants and attendees were excited about the event.

“Every year the numbers go up, and there’s always more people who want to come and join it,” Novelly said. “I know a lot of the clubs I’ve spoken to are really happy. They’ve gotten a lot of people interested and they’re really excited about it.”

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