It may have been Friday the 13th, but that didn’t stop the Institute for Citizenship and Social Responsibility from celebrating National Happiness Day with their Pursuit of Happiness event.

The event was sponsored by ICSR, particularly a group of students who take a course called the Pursuit of Happiness. The event gave students a chance to do things that make them happy, such as getting their faces painted, eating popcorn and snow cones, playing corn hole and getting balloon animals made by a clown.

The ICSR students surveyed people at WKU before the event to find out their levels of happiness.

Bianca Brown, a senior from Berkeley, Calif., is one of the students taking the Pursuit of Happiness course. She said people could still take the survey at the event using the three iPads available or on their Facebook page.

“We’re having people do surveys to find out their happiness level, and then this day is kind of the culminating product of that where more people can take the surveys, but also they do something that makes them feel good,” Brown said.

Brown said the activities at the event really brought out everyone’s inner child.

“The fair theme really appealed to us when we were coming up with the idea for this because it seems like when people go to fair-type events, it’s a good chance for them to interact while doing fun things,” Brown said.

The Coalition, a group for gender and racial equality, had a booth set up to promote an upcoming conference on April 28 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Lawrenceburg sophomore Jessica Brumley, an editor for The Coalition Zine, said they set a booth up at the event because their group is for equality for everyone, and everyone deserves to be happy.

“It’s a good event — it looks like everybody’s having a good time, so that’s kind of the point, right?” Brumley said.

The Student Wellness Program also had a table set up. Hustonville junior Morgan Kidwell manned the table and handed out suckers at the event.

“We’re handing things out to make people happy,” Kidwell said.

Kidwell also said they were promoting wellness because that makes people happier.

WKU Counseling and Testing Center representatives were handing out sunglasses with the center’s name and phone number on them at the event.

The ALIVE Center, the Student Government Association and the psychology club all had tables set up as well. The psychology club brought along bubbles, sidewalk chalk, coloring books and hula hoops.

“This is like the final project of our class, and we hope to make it like an annual event at Western,” Brown said.