Hello Oddacious readers! It has been a little over a year since our last post. Before we begin with this blog, many new faces have joined our team. I invite you to check out the Team page to see how we’ve grown.
Now, back to the the matter at hand. This Halloween we wanted to do something for and with the community during the spooky season. So, we participated in the Chamber of Commerce’s scarecrow competition. Despite our amazing concept (see picture), we did not win first place. Nevertheless, we did enjoy creating it together and we enjoyed the visit from city code enforcement. Evidently, our tattoo parlor theme was so convincing we were reported for operating an illegal business less than twelve hours after putting up the display.
But what else could we do to engage with the community? Why not something interactive like a silly “haunted” house or a trunk-or-treat-style event? Could we pull this off? Will people even come? No way to know except to do it, so we said, “Let the planning commence!”
That’s when we saw that Main Street businesses in Ripon were hosting a trick or treat event. Even though we are not located on Main Street, the amazing coordinator suggested using the parking lot of Events 22 to drive families to our location. Shout out to them because we were able to get that spot!
We saw this as the perfect opportunity to advertise our event. Soon after, we began working on logistics. We needed plenty of volunteers because we were ambitious for the first event we threw for the community.
We ended up calling this a “Trunk or Treat” despite there being zero car trunks filled with candy (semantics). The plan was simple. A few days before, we left fliers at people’s doors. The day of, we had two volunteers, Edgar and Itzayana, canvassing out on Main Street, passing out fliers and candy. (We had SO much candy!) Outside the office, there were movies playing, pumpkin painting, and face painting. Inside the office, we decorated! There were tables with candy and candied apples, there were inflatables and lights, and there even was “fishing” for treats!
Let me tell you, it went better than expected. We were not flooded with kids like Main Street, but everyone enjoyed themselves. Kids (and parents) loved the candied apples. The bowls with candy were busy. There were shrieks of excitement when they caught something at the fishing station. Thank you, Emilly, for making sure we had plenty of candy for everyone! Special thanks to Esteisy and Sarah for ensuring there was plenty of “fish” to catch.
The face painting and pumpkin painting stations were also very popular. We love seeing creativity flourish. Thank you, Tommie, Karen, and Morgan, for manning the stations!
And let's not forget the movies outside. Monica was handing out popcorn so anyone could sit down and enjoy a film as they wrapped up their day!
We thoroughly enjoyed this event. We trusted each other to put 100%, and everyone put in 110%. Thank you, Emilly, Bobbi, Karen, Morgan, Monica, Sarah, Esteisy, Steve, Edgar, Itzayana, Sam, Tommie-lyn, and Chris.
Our purpose is to promote joy through service to others. We think we accomplished that with our first Halloween event.
What should we do next year?
