CCA felt like a campus for a few hours.

At CCA’s Family Fun Day, games and food brought people in. What changed the mood was something else: campus briefly felt like a place where students and families could stay.

Most days at the Community College of Aurora, campus is a place people move through.

On Saturday, it looked different.

Kids crowded around a folding table trying not to knock over a giant wooden block tower. A bright inflatable slide rose out of the parking lot. Under a red-and-white striped canopy, children sat for face painting while adults browsed tables and talked nearby. A line formed at the Big Belly Brothers BBQ truck. Families moved between games, music, giveaways, and food under a wide spring sky.

For a few hours, CCA felt less like a place to pass through and more like a place to be.

That shift mattered most for the students whose lives do not split neatly between school and everything else.

April Stewart, CCA’s parenting student advocacy coach, said Family Fun Day grew out of the students she works with. Stewart supports parenting students through case management and also manages a scholarship cohort. She said the event was designed to bring together students, families, community partners, and former students in one shared space.

“I want folks to understand how important community is,” Stewart said, especially for parenting and nontraditional students.

That idea came through clearly in the students who showed up with children.

Nichole Holler, a parenting student with two kids, said the event made campus feel more possible. She is taking classes online and said she had barely been on campus before.

“I’ve actually only been to the admissions building,” Holler said.

That made the event more than a casual Saturday outing. It gave her a way to picture the campus as part of her life, not just as the place attached to her classes.

“It does. It really does,” Holler said when asked whether an event like this makes college feel more possible or more welcoming. “It really does make me feel like it’s going to be a lot easier to finish my degree and do it with support.”

Holler’s son Michael, 5, put it more simply. Asked about his favorite part of the day, he had a quick answer: the bouncy house.

That was one of the clearest things Family Fun Day revealed: a family event does not just make campus look lively. For some students, it makes campus feel workable.

Trish Samora, another parenting student, said that matters because her son is already part of the reality of her college life.

“In between the time I spent at home and the time I spent here, I spent five days out of the week here,” Samora said. “So, to have a family fun event for my son to attend because he likes to come to the college only makes it better.”

She said the event made campus feel more welcoming because it removed one of the quiet questions many parents carry with them: whether their child is truly included in this world or just nearby it.

“I don’t have to worry about if my son’s allowed to come to my workplace or my school,” Samora said. “Because he is. He’s welcome to come.”

That sense of welcome was noticeable beyond parenting students too.

John Rizcallah, a family member at the event, called it “very much like a community event” and said it “bridges the gap between college.”

Austin Benedict, another family member who said he had never been to campus before, put it even more simply: “Community for sure.”

Those reactions matter because Family Fun Day was not only about entertaining current students. It also gave relatives, neighbors, and first-time visitors a different picture of what campus can be. Instead of a place defined by classes, offices, and transactions, it looked like a place where families could spend time together.

Vanessa Villegas, a current student who came with family, said opening the event to relatives changed the atmosphere.

“It’s open to families as well,” Villegas said, “so it’s not just like a student event.”

She added that it made her more likely to bring family back because it gave them a chance to “see what you see when you come to campus.”

Community colleges often talk about community while still feeling built around arrival and departure. Students show up, handle what they need to handle, and leave. Family Fun Day pushed against that rhythm.