The area outside of the Campus Center became a bustling marketplace filled with shopping students and entrepreneurial spirit last Friday, Sept. 26. The market featured thrifted clothes (used jeans, tops, jerseys, and jorts abounded) and handmade goods such as jewelry, prints, and hand-decorated clothing items. The event, organized by ARC_Vintage, ran from about 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Before the event, I had an exclusive interview with the minds behind ARC_Vintage, Daniel Morales and Caleb Rivera (both junior, architecture), to uncover the origins of the “brand” and the flea market. ARC_Vintage started in the pair's freshman year with a thrifting addiction: Daniel was thrifting “almost every day.” Inspired by flea markets at other Adventist universities, the two decided to set up shop on campus and start reselling the clothes they were thrifting. Thus, ARC_Vintage was born. After their first event in the 2023-2024 season, other students reached out to them with other wares and ideas.
“We were like, ‘I mean, hey, they sell clothes, we sell clothes,’ or ‘Hey, he sells really nice sneakers,’ why not collab and get more people to come? That's the whole goal of this: to get as many people to come, and then to linger, and then to buy items,” Caleb said. More importantly, they noted that the market is an opportunity for those on campus to “support student businesses.”
Aiming to be an even bigger event than in previous years, this 269 Flea Market event featured a menagerie of blue-topped, open-sided tents stuffed with merchandise and interested students. In the center, of course, was the ARC_Vintage tent, reselling leagues of previously loved garments. Several other booths were also selling thrifted items. One was selling sneakers, and a couple, such as Basam’s Beads’ and artbymegs’ tents, were selling personally crafted items. Megan Woodcock (junior, architecture), the creator of the artbymegs tent, shared that this was her first time selling at the flea market, though she had sold on campus previously at a Korean American Student Association (KASA) event. Selling stamps, prints, clothes, and other goodies, Megan said she most enjoyed seeing people’s reactions to her handiwork.
There were other attractions as well: a booth from Dining Services distributing free Bubly and a Jenga tower, to say nothing of the Performative Male contest, which backgrounded the market halfway through.
In the future, Daniel and Caleb hope that the flea markets grow even bigger. Going forward, they floated the idea of hosting an event once per semester, though, as juniors, they will be graduating soon.
According to Caleb, when that happens, “maybe [the flea market] will be passed on to someone else to do. But, for the current moment, I mean, we're still trucking, and we're going to see how this goes. And if it's continuing in a positive direction, then we know we're going the right way.” Per Caleb and Daniel, the flea market was a success: there was “a great student turnout, and it seems like people enjoyed it along with the performative male competition! We look forward to having more events like this in the future!”
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.