Citrus is in season this time of year and the E3 Fruit Team of the Fullerton Arboretum have collected as many oranges as they could to prepare and giveaway to the public for their event, Slices and Smiles.
The inaugural event featured three items for the general public to try, made by the team: sweet fruit juice, orange slices and immunity shots.
The regular fruit juice and orange slices were deemed more suited for adults and kids, while the immunity shots, featuring spices like cayenne, were only catered to the adults.
Jarryd Sarmiento, team lead of the E3 Fruit Team and second-year business major, mentioned how almost everything was grown and made by them, only using a couple of outside resources for the immunity shots.
“For the immunity shots, we did have to go get ginger and turmeric for those, that would be only outside things, but everything else (is from the Arboretum),” Sarmiento said.
The interns provided an acrylic stand of the recipes to make the immunity shots and orange juice, labeling them “Sunshine Kick” and “Golden Rush” respectively.
Coloring stations with themed prints were also available for guests and children, serving a greater purpose beyond the E3 Fruit Team’s event. Surprisingly, there happened to be another event coexisting with Slices and Smiles.
The early childhood engagement team of the Arboretum hosted their Little Explorers sensory event within the Children’s Garden and prepared activities for the little ones such as a scavenger hunt, story-time and arts and crafts.
Slices and Smiles served as the tasting portion of the scavenger hunt since the other team didn’t have a taste station to begin with.
Edleen Suh, E3 graduate assistant and an environmental studies graduate student, said that teams often double up on events to make event work easier and to help with interteam coordination.
Overall, the two events had a huge turnout in the end resulting in the E3 Fruit Team’s goods running out and the early childhood engagement team’s activities staying occupied.
Placentia residents Katie Esparza and Katie Tobias came to the Arboretum with their kids specifically for the children’s event.
Along the way, they stopped by the E3 Fruit Team’s table to try out the citrus items. Esparza and her daughter took tangerines home while Tobias and her son opted for juice.
“My motivator was to get her (Esparza’s daughter) outside of the house and just exploring because they’re so used to being indoors watching TV,” Esparza said. “I think just any excuse to get them out, just to discover and see new things is really cool.”
In the near future, the E3 Fruit Team interns are planning on hosting another Slices and Smiles, but will be incorporating different aspects to separate what they executed this semester.
One idea, according to Sarmiento, would be having the guests pay an admission fee to pick fruits off of their trees. While it’s still up in the air, the event is marked on the calendar for future semesters.
“When people come here to the Arboretum for an intern event, we hope that they take something environmental with them,” Suh said. “Whether it’s remembering that we coexist with nature or teaching the little ones to be respectful of the environment around them.”