On Wednesday, October 29th, the Maywood Community Council hosted our Halloween event in the Maywood Gym. Our volunteer committee spent many weeks planning and getting ready for this event. At the event we had stations that the children had to complete. Once they completed a station, they got a stamp on their event passport. We had to decide which stations to do, purchase the necessary items, and get everything ready before the event. We asked parents to sign up to volunteer to run stations at the event, and we also asked the Youth Krew from the South Central Youth Centre to help run stations. We asked school staff to help us communicate and organize ticket ordering online, since we did not have access to student contact information. We organized the event into 3 sessions so the Gym would not be too full and children could complete all of the stations to get a prize. We purchased Halloween candy and made goodie bags for prizes. We encouraged participants to wear their costumes.
The day of the event, we had volunteers come at 3:00 to set up the Gym, which was done in record time. The event was a huge success. Every session was full, and students came with their entire families. We really enjoyed seeing so many new and familiar faces and seeing everyone having a fun time. Clean up after the event was also extremely quick and efficient. We are grateful for the volunteers who came and helped out, especially since it was a challenge to get enough volunteers. We almost had to cancel the event because we were not going to have enough adult volunteers to help with set-up, running the stations, and clean-up. We managed to get just enough, so we avoided the disappointment of having to cancel such a fun community event. Next year, we are going to communicate to families that the Community Council needs their help in order to run community events. We also learned that despite there being challenges, everyone had a great time and it was well worth the effort.
