The youth committee hosted its first Trunk or Treat event this past Saturday on October 31st. This event was put together by many people in the community and was meant to let children experience Halloween with a new twist during these difficult times. The youth foundation efforts brought together volunteers and many families to feel together as a community again.
The youth committee decided that they wanted to come up with ideas for bringing the community together. They came about the idea of the Trunk or Treat event in the aspect of letting the children enjoy Halloween.
"With everything going on we feel the children are missing out so we thought let’s do this, we propose something to the city and we asked if we could do a drive-by and all of our guest here are wearing mask and gloves while they are giving the candy out and we just got so many people from our community to participate for our children friends and family and they donated many things to give out," said Julia Firnkoess, chair of the Youth Committee.
At the event, there were volunteers and families dressed up in a wide variety of costumes truly embodying the Halloween spirit. There wasn't just candy being passed to the children but food and coffee being passed out as well. A local Starbucks had come out and donated free coffee to parents driving through the park.
There were so many excited children giggling through car windows and singing along with the Halloween songs blasting through speakers. There was food being passed out as well and the whole event was such a joyous atmosphere.
"I was very excited about this event and I told my students about the event all month long. I hopefully can see them all today. They don’t know what theme I was going to decorate my car and if they show up I want them to be thrilled," said Maria Torres, a 6th-grade teacher at Grand Terrace Elementary.
Torres had decorated her car to the popular game, Among Us, for the children to feel a sense of fun and familiarity with the event. She was handing out candy and gave students in her class special treats.
The event had such a great turn out that the committee is motivated to come up with more in the future.
"Our community is so small that it just works out and we just post things on the 92313 page. There are people we have newly linked with and we plan to get these events in the work and keep everyone in the loop in the community," said Chastsdei Kotsay, member of the youth committee.
The committee wanted to thank the community members who volunteered to host a trunk and treat,
"We want to thank the community members who volunteered to host a trunk and bring candy, we feel it’s because of these wonderful people in our community that Halloween wasn’t canceled. All rally together to make this happen for our children. And our committee wants to thank them. It truly is because of them that we were able to do this. I love love living in a community like ours with so many wonderful people who are willing to go above and beyond for our children and to make this community wonderful," said Firnkoess.