Students’ faces lit up Sunday afternoon as they discovered a pack of corgis shuffling around the grass behind Coffman Union at the University of Minnesota.

The event, called Yudof Hall Pet a Corgi, was hosted by the Corgi Racing Society of Minnesota with Midwest Animal Rescue & Services as a sponsor.

“Anyone that’s stressed out in some way, we want to help them,” said Megan Eliason, Corgi Racing Society president and founder.

Eliason said the organization often hosts the corgi gatherings to help people de-stress, to help corgis socialize and to connect interested people with adoption services.

The event was completely volunteer-based, she said. The Corgi Racing Society has a database of over 300 corgis in the area for these types of events.

Corgis took turns playing with students in a designated dog-proofed space in Yudof Hall and in the courtyard behind Coffman.

Many students stumbled across the event on the way to Bharat’s annual Holi Festival and were pleasantly surprised to see so many corgis on campus.

“We stumbled upon it accidentally and it was the happiest accident of the day,” said first year biology student Sravani Buddhavarapu.

Inside Yudof, students were able to sign up for shifts to interact with the dogs for 10 minute intervals.

Eliason said staff from Yudof reached out to the organization to help students de-stress during finals.

“My stress has been relieved,” said first-year dance major Annie Hoffman.

Corgi owner Nicole Peterson said she found the event on Facebook after searching for corgi events.

Peterson recently adopted her corgi, Bruce, a few months ago and said this was her first corgi event.

“It’s fun to share the joys of having a puppy with everybody else,” she said.

But part of her reason for attending was to socialize Bruce, who she eventually wants to train to be a therapy dog.

“They look so happy, too,” Hoffman said. “They seem to be enjoying it just as much as we do.”