Church tie-dye event comes back to campus

Story by Monika StaszczakContributing writer

Last Friday the Episcopal College Fellowship hosted a tie-dye event on  campus.

A small group of Murray State students involved with the fellowship made an on-campus tie-dye station in front of the Carr Health Building. All interested could come, grab a shirt and make some art.

The Episcopal College Fellowship is a part of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Murray that operates on the Murray State campus.

This group offers a lot of on-campus, church–related activities, like Sunday school, dinner and game nights, etc.

Tie-dyeing is a technique of dyeing fabrics, where someone folds the fabric and binds it with rubber bands and then applies the dye. The goal is to make bright colors, swirly shapes and fun patterns.

According to Merlin Silk’s “The History of Tie-Dye,” tie-dye actually originates from ancient fabric dying techniques like traditional art from India, Japan and Africa, and it became popular in the United States around 1960s and 1970s through the hippie movement. Recently more and more common, the tie-dye trend is now coming back into favor.

The tie-dyeing event on the Murray State campus developed from a church camp tradition.

“We grew up at a church camp that does that every summer,” said Matthew Bradley, priest–in-charge and campus minister of the Episcopal College Fellowship. After coming to Murray, the group of church friends have decided to continue the tie dye tradition and share it with the rest of campus.

The youth group offered T–shirts that anyone could come by and tie-dye for free, and then take it home in a plastic bag, along with instructions on how to complete the process. Several students were helping the less-experienced and assisting everyone.

Even after the shirts were gone, everyone was welcome to continue dyeing with their own shirts.

While the whole event was free, the Episcopal College Fellowship accepted donations. Students could donate however much money they wanted. The money raised went toward paying for kids to go to the church camp with the St. John’s Episcopal Church for free.

Colorful tie-dye shirts and music attracted the students passing by.

A lemonade booth was organized by the Murray Environmental Student Society club right by the tie-dye station as well.

“Everyone was super helpful and I had a blast,” said Amanda Rakestraw, a freshman at Murray State who attended the event.

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