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Grape stomp part of CSUSM's first Alumni Month

By COLLEEN MENSCHING
Staff Writer

Event will include wine, one ton of fruit.

SAN MARCOS — Cal State San Marcos is celebrating its bumper crop of alumni with a grape stomp this Saturday.

The "Crush Party," which organizers hope to hold annually, is open to the public and kicks off the school's inaugural Alumni Month.

In 1990, the university's first 250 students met for classes in a strip mall. The alumni ranks have since swelled to 19,000 and the Alumni Association hopes to lure as many of them as possible to the university's 304-acre campus this month with faculty-alumni dinners, sporting events and a career expo.

Heather Manley, Cal State San Marcos alumna and director of the association, said this is the first year the association has focused on creating campus rituals for alumni. The Crush Party, which Manley described as the month's flagship event, has been in the works since early this spring.

"I'm hoping that, as long as everything goes good this time around, we'll definitely make this one of the key events of Alumni Month," Manley said.

This is Cal State's first Crush Party, but it will be the sixth for Brian Vitek, head of Carlsbad Coastal Winery and a 1996 graduate of the university. His winery is donating wine for tasting and 2,000 pounds of grapes for stomping.

"I had gone to a couple of colleges previously, and Cal State San Marcos was the first school that I went to that the professors were really engaged," Vitek said. "They wanted you to learn."

In years past, the winery has been home to the Crush Party. The event — which Vitek said has a family-friendly harvest festival feel — was so popular last year that people had to be turned away at the door for lack of room.

Vitek estimated that 80 percent of Carlsbad Coastal Winery shareholders are Cal State San Marcos alumni. Vitek's experience has been that recent graduates tend to distance themselves from school but slowly gravitate back to their alma mater.

"There's over 19,000 alumni now and a pretty small number of participants (in the alumni community)," he said. "It can be a pretty powerful organization if you do it right."

Cal State San Marcos is old enough and big enough now to establish some traditions, said Larry Thomas, president of the five-member alumni board and a human resources director.

Alumni have been invited to a summer baseball game five years running. The fifth annual Alzheimer's and Family Caregiver Resource Fair will take place during alumni month on the same day as the second "Because I Care" 5K run, which also supports families dealing with Alzheimer's and other physical and mental disabilities.

Thomas said the university has the potential for an active alumni network because many graduates are from San Diego County, settle in San Diego County, or both. Creating new events such as the Crush Party can help bring that about, he said.

"It is a win-win for people if you have something you like to do on campus. ... That's a win-win for you as an individual, and the (alumni) board and the current students," he said.