This year, for the first time in a long time, at Rock Island High School, the Student Council threw a Halloween party. They invited all the elementary schools and junior high schools in Rock Island to the event. Mrs. Mertel, who’s in charge of Student Council, stated, “It just seemed like an idea that may be worthwhile for us to try, so I just put it on a list of ideas for students to vote on, and that was an event that they wanted to do.” High school students, whether they were a part of Student Council or not, were allowed to come and volunteer at the event. There were a lot of different activities for the younger kids to do. They had games, such as the spider race, mummy bowling, spooky suckers, and many more. Also, there was a chance for kids to get candy and other prizes for the games. 

     With only a little time, the Student Council was still able to put on a successful event. “Any time you do something new, you’re always left worried that it’s not going to go well, but it did. Kids and families came. We had a steady flow of participants and trick or treaters, so that was probably the best part, just seeing it come together. It was incentivizing for future years,” Mertel stated. Yvette Perez-Gomez, a senior at Rock Island High School and a member of Student Council, said, “The event actually had a pretty great turn out for a somewhat unplanned event. The best part about the event was getting to watch the kids enjoy their time and  eat candy.”

     While the event was fun and enjoyable, the event was also important because it was used to help get food and raise money for the Hunger Drive.  Admission was a donation of food or money toward the Hunger Drive, and since the turn out was good, the Student Council ended up with quite a few donations. “We ended up filling about four boxes of food and raised fifty dollars, which will go towards the Hunger Drive to buy even more food,” Mertel said.

     The event was an overall success, and the hope is that Student Council is able to do more events similar to this. Mertel said, “The kids have Expressed that they would like to do it again, and I think that doing it again in the future with more time will be better, especially after seeing the success of this year, we could definitely make it better.” Perez-Gomez shared similar sentiments, stating that, “I definitely think it’s something we can do and we should do in the upcoming years because it’s really fun for the kids.”  

     This may have been the first time Student Council threw a Halloween Party, but it surely won’t be their last.