Dressed in their Halloween finest, some Okotoks students hit the streets a day early.
They weren’t out asking for candy, they were giving food away to help less fortunate families in the community.
Grade 6 students at Westmount School went reverse trick-or-treating on Oct. 30 dropping off donations to the Okotoks Food Bank in bins at the Okotoks Natural Foods and Sobeys.
“There are some less fortunate families who don’t get to go trick or treating,” said student James Jewer. “They can’t afford the fancy costumes and stuff. We’re giving items to the food bank so they can have stuff on Halloween.”
Almost one hundred students filled two bins at both locations with food and other essentials.
“Breakfast items, pancake mix, and we didn’t just do food, we gave toothbrushes and toothpaste and soap and stuff like that,” said Nyah Ulmer.
Since it was a day before Halloween, they all dressed up for the occasion. Jewer went as a Jedi knight, while Ulmer took inspiration from the food she was handing out that day. She was a cereal killer – wearing an oversized cereal box with knives through it.
The two did go trick-or-treating on Halloween night, but they did it with the knowledge they helped people who need it.
Teacher Graham Campbell said he’s proud of how his students seized an opportunity to make a difference.
It started as an idea to give back on Halloween and the students took over.
“It was just a tiny, tiny idea and I shared it with the class and then the class really made it happen,” said Campbell. “It was the students who got behind it. It was the students who brought the food in. It was the students that shared it with the other Grade 6 classes.”
Once the seed was planted, the idea grew.
Campbell said the school’s other Grade 6 classes joined in after the idea began to spread around and parents got involved.
“One tiny little idea when shared with this class turned into a hundred kids filling two bins,” he said.
Campbell hopes the idea continues to grow next year and students from other grades get involved with giving back around Halloween.
