Central Hosts Safe Halloween

This October, the Central student council, with the help of Interact Club, sponsored Safe Halloween to provide a fun and safe Halloween experience for children in the Champaign-Urbana area. Student council has hosted this a few times before, under the guidance of their old advisor, Corinne Pennock.

Safe Halloween is “a game and trick-or-treating event where the community could come and bring their kids to have a safe space to celebrate Halloween,” said current student council advisor Emily Hogan. To organize the event, the student council reached out to clubs around Central to see if they would be interested in participating in Safe Halloween, and ten clubs ended up hosting rooms. “We started to plan out the games each room would be hosting [after clubs responded],” said Hogan. Interact Club helped advertise this event. “We had flyers around the school, at the Springer Cultural Center, the Champaign Public Library, and the YMCA,” said Caroline Hartmann, an Interact club officer. Hogan shared flyers with Chambana Moms and with the elementary and middle schools in Champaign. The student council “provided candy for each club [to give out],” Hartmann said.

On the day of Safe Halloween, all of the planning done by the student council and Interact Club was realized as families in the local community came to Central and enjoyed playing games in club rooms. National Art Honor Society ran a face painting room along with a coloring room. “We set up stations in one room with mirrors and paint where our volunteers would paint whatever [the kids] asked,” said Hannah Su, president of NAHS. “In our other room, we set out coloring supplies and coloring sheets.” Interact Club ran a ring toss and a bucket toss, according to Hartmann. “Student Council did candy tic-tac-toe and African American Club did Just Dance,” said Hogan. 

The families that came seemed to enjoy each room. Su said, “I estimate[d] that there were collectively about 60 kids in the face paint room and about 40 in the coloring room,” while Hartmann said, “The [Interact] room had at least 1-2 families at all times.”

In the end, about 200-300 people came to celebrate together at Safe Halloween, according to Hogan. It was fun for both the families and the Central students volunteering their time at Safe Halloween, and it was a time where Central students could give back to their community. Hartmann called the event “a huge success”, and hopes that “Safe Halloween becomes a growing tradition for the school and community in the future.”