“Furry is more of a label. So many things encompass being a furry,” said Lu Colmenero, president of The Furries of Fresno City College . “It’s a large hobby that I feel it connects so many different kinds of people.”
The Furries of Fresno City College, a club founded last semester, are a club for one thing, but the president, being highly driven and motivated, aims to create a safe space for others, literally anybody, to find an open and welcoming community on campus.
The furry community, in a similar fashion to the anime community, is part of a niche subculture. Both involve people who are actively engaged in online and offline communities.
They have overlapping interests which ultimately leads to the creation of a shared creative network, much like how the club collaborates with the Art Club on campus.
“There are many people who don’t know how to draw nor have fursonas. There are many people who don’t have the time, many people who don’t even have a fursona, who, that I feel like for my club, I want to have many different ways of engaging,” Colmenero said.
Whether it’s through activities like art workshops, art collaborations, movie nights and casual hangouts on-and-off campus, this serves to create and strengthen a sense of community within the club.
While mostly done in-person, have no fear! There’s also a Discord server for those who can’t join, but still want to be active online as well.
“It’s a subculture, for one, but at its core, it’s a hobby,” said C’Jay Pacheo, inter-club council representative and social media manager.
For those who know, don’t know, are uninformed, or actually want to be informed, the word “furry” is such a broad term, meaning so much more than what people initially perceive it to be.
There are furries who create comics, digital art, music, action figures, fursuits and glass art. Furries sing, dance and are part of the opera. There are furries who are doctors, nurses and lawyers. There are furries who worked on the COVID-19 vaccine and there are furries who are involved in so much more.
All in all, you don’t have to be an artist, you don’t have to be a furry and you don’t have to have all these requirements in order to join this club on campus or even the furry fandom.
Whether it’s to engage in one’s hobbies with other people or simply being proud that one’s a furry, there’ll be no shortage of an opportunity to meet someone new by joining this club.
One of the primary reasons for the club’s founding is to make this community club space accessible for anyone local to the Fresno area, for those who don’t attend Fresno City College.
The Furries of Fresno City College will have their first meeting of the fall 2025 semester on Sept. 22 in room MS220 at 1:30 p.m.
