Leadership hosted its annual Trick-Or-Treat Street (TOTS) event last Wednesday evening. Eager trick-or-treaters swarmed the Green for Halloween-themed games, while M-A students occupied classrooms and handed out candy to kids passing through. Students from Drama Club hosted photo booths and put together a haunted hallway in Pride Hall.
Leadership Clubs Coordinator and senior Simone McCreary said, “TOTS was started in the ‘90s as a way for children in unsafe neighborhoods to have a safe, festive Halloween celebration. It’s grown every single year. It’s really great to interact with the community, all the families, and maybe even future M-A students. It’s a really nice Halloween celebration with everyone in costume.”
On the Green, students ran stations like the sack race, bean bag toss, and freeze dance. There was never a shortage of crafty activities either—there were tables dedicated to pumpkin decorating, cookie decorating, and face painting.
Sophomore Leadership student Lucas Selvik helped run the ‘count the candy corn in the jar’ game on the Green. He said, “My favorite part was talking with the kids because they’re pretty cool. They’re pretty enthusiastic about guessing for the game. A kid asked me if there were a billion candy corns in the jar. That’s pretty creative.”
Trick-or-treater Lorraine Bullard and her mom mingled around arts and crafts activities for a large portion of the evening. She said, “I really liked the bingo and decorating pumpkins.”
Also at the event, trick-or-treater Lela Eaton said, “I like seeing all the students dressed as pirates, because pirates are super cool.”
Part of M-A’s campus was also decked out in Halloween decorations—flashing spider webs, hanging bats, and inflatables lined C- and D-wing hallways and classrooms, inviting trick-or-treaters to dive fist-first into bowls overflowing with candy.
Trick-or-treater Drew Wurster said, “My costume is Aaron Judge because I really like baseball and I want to be like him when I grow up.” His friend Sammy Karr said, “Candy is the best part of tonight.”
A walk through the D-wing led families to the String Cheese Quartet, a part of the Music Service Club. To add to the evening’s ambiance, members Jayna Chua, Lexi Chua, Katherine Ahn, and Andrew Ahn played various Halloween songs—including “Ghostbusters,” “The Addams Family,” and “In the Hall of the Mountain King”—for over an hour, all while in costume!
Ultimately, the event brought smiles to faces all around, from kids and parents to participating students. McCreary said, “I’ve always loved these community-based events, and TOTS was very much along the lines of some other events I’ve done, so I really wanted to lead it. I just love the environment. Really, this is all about connecting with people in our community. At the end of the day, TOTS is built on a lot of love.”
