As a freshman, Education junior Erika Sanders asked Northwestern to help her provide a place for students to gather as a family on Easter. She succeeded, starting a new tradition.

About 100 people were at the Black House on Sunday for food and fellowship, creating the warm atmosphere of family dinners they might have been missing at home. They sat on the staircase to talk, crowded around the TV to watch sports and gathered anywhere else to dance and play cards.

Weinberg sophomore Adrienne Moore, who planned this year’s event, said she had last-minute worries about funding and organization, but everything came together. Moore said she was happy to see people arrive even before the event began at 3 p.m.

“We’re so academic that we rarely take time to sit back,” she said.

The day’s celebration included dinner, dessert and an egg hunt, said Education junior Terrenda White. Dinner included ribs, barbecued chicken, potato salad, macaroni, vegetables and corn bread, with cheesecake and peach cobbler for dessert.

Sanders, an Education junior, said the event and its preparation help to build a sense of community. She said men get involved in the planning and sometimes “go crazy” over hanging streamers and hiding eggs.

“This is a way to establish family here,” she said.

Weinberg sophomore Alexis Echols, who attended the event last year as a freshman and came back this year, said the sense of community fostered by events such as the dinner can aid in the recruitment of more African-American students, helping them to feel more at ease in the NU community.