One day a week, students walking near the front of Coffman Union are interrupted from their routines and reverie by a few enthusiastic women with a loud pitch.
“Free Mom Hugs!” they yell — arms extended wide — to everyone who passes. For some students wearing headphones or ear buds, it takes another boisterous shout: “Free Mom Hugs!”
Then the students realize the rare opportunity at hand, and most stop for a heartfelt hug that brightens their day, at the very least.
Free Mom Hugs was the brainchild of Genny Arndt, the mother to a senior on the Twin Cities campus. In late January, during the height of the ICE occupation in Minnesota, she and some fellow mothers decided to come to campus to try to brighten the moods of students.
Those early weeks were tough, Arndt says, as students struggled to cope with the pervasive heaviness. But things have continued to improve, and on a warm Wednesday in late April, with finals not far around the bend, students were reveling in their hugs.
The moms engage students from every demographic, which was clearly on display. A slight majority of the hugged are women, she says, but men love the attention too, and some “big huge guys” come sprinting for a hug. There are regulars who show up most weeks, and word of mouth has picked up since a video of the hugging scene posted on TikTok garnered some 45,000 views, Arndt says.
Arndt and the other mothers have seen students cry and have heard stories about sadness in their lives, including losing a parent. When a student lingers in a hug, the moms try to match their needs.
Rita Goodrich, an alumna with a junior daughter on the Twin Cities campus, has also been a part of the hugging event each week. Goodrich was grappling with the events in late January and noticed a quote: “If you’re having a hard time, you’re not doing enough.” Right after that, she saw Arndt’s post on Facebook looking for other moms and knew what she needed to do.
“This generation [of students] has gotten really whacked,” says Goodrich. “It’s been really, really hard for kids.” They were teenagers during the COVID pandemic and during a pivotal point in their development they didn’t have much interaction, she notes. “I know they’re really resilient, but you just don’t become resilient without a lot of work.”
“I have such hope because these students we’ve interacted with are just amazing,” she adds. “There’s just a light that they have, and I feel so hopeful about what’s going to happen next. … I am just so inspired by this group of students.”
Relief and joy written on their faces
The spontaneous joy that the hugs bring far outweighs the occasional sadness. Students are regularly on phone calls and FaceTime calls with their own mothers when they engage with the campus moms, and they’re able to “share” their surrogate hugs in real time.
On this sunny and balmy Earth Day, Arndt asks a student how his week is going. “Terrible… but much better now,” he smiles. “Thank you. You guys are the best.”
Almost uniformly, students walk away from their hugs with a huge smile. After receiving theirs, two women literally skip past the Goldy statue on their way to the Coffman entrance, brimming with joy.
At the end of their two-hour shifts, Arndt and her fellow moms leave with tired arms, lip gloss smeared in their hair, and smelling like vanilla — the hazards of their calling. That’s a price they’ll pay any day.
“It just gets better every single week,” says Arndt. “What’s really funny is, there are a lot of kids who think they’re doing it for us.”
There may be some truth to that. Jessica Torres, who did a hugging shift in early March, has three kids in college, including twin sons who are juniors at the University of Minnesota. “It’s hard as a mom, too. I don’t get to give them hugs every day,” Torres says. Knowing how hugs affect young adults and that some of the students live out of state, she decided that she wanted to be a part of the Free Mom Hugs movement.
“It’s been really beneficial for the moms and for the kids,” she says. “Everybody needs a mom hug.”
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