Spirit commission branches out with new Halloween event

This Halloween, Leadership’s spirit commission will bring a spooky surprise to Saratoga with its new “Trunk-or-Treat” event.

This event is aimed at bringing the community together by providing a safe environment for trick or treating — right out of the cars of upperclassmen.

“We’re actually going to have some clubs, classes, and team sports fundraising as well on the side of this,” said senior Sophia Shetler, one of the spirit commissioners. “So it’s for fundraising for all our sports and clubs and also it’s to bring the community together.”

The event will take place in the school front parking lot from 5-7 p.m., and students will park their decorated cars and hand out candy to trick-or-treaters. There will also be an inflatable bounce house, an area of hay bales for photos and some extra crafts for children to do. Using money from the ASB budget, the school will provide all the candy for the students.

Spirit commision chose an earlier time in the day for the event so that students and community members would have time for traditional door-to-door trick-or-treating. Since Halloween falls on a school night, Leadership also did not want to impede upon students’ studying or homework time.

“The juniors and seniors just didn’t want to spend all night doing this, and as a parent, I know that when my kids were younger we appreciated going out a little earlier when it was still light out,” said ASB and leadership director Matthew Torrens. “And so 5 o’clock, it’s still light and 7 o’clock, it’s dark so it’s a nice transition.”

The idea for a trunk-or-treat was influenced by a popular event put on by churches. In some neighborhoods, churches have friendly neighbors hand out candy, creating a safe environment for young residents to trick-or-treat without worrying about potential dangers.

Since spirit commision hosts tailgates for football games, they did not have a lot of events around October and November due to the end of the football season. The commision decided to take on Halloween-themed activities the month of October and came up with the idea of Trunk-or-Treat to get the whole community involved.

Organizers hope about 25 cars participate in trunk-or-treat. To entice participation, they will be handing out a prize for the best decorated trunk.

The event will be a good opportunity for students to connect with community residents in an event near their homes. Torrens anticipates the event being a great success.

“I think there’s a lot of benefits — we do a lot of volunteering at organizations around Saratoga but not a lot of opportunities right here in Saratoga,” Torrens said. “And it’s right here on our doorstep. [The spirit commission’s] mission is to create opportunities on campus here where students can get excited about and do fun things, and I think this is a perfect fit.”