Riverdale students enjoying Safe Halloween activities.
@KAPPADELTAPIMC / INSTAGRAM
By Mack Olmsted, Features Editor
The education honor society Kappa Delta Pi (KDP), brought Halloween to campus for another year with the Safe Halloween event.
Previously called MC Halloween, the Safe Halloween event is for the children in the Riverdale community to go trick-or-treating in a safe environment on campus. The event ran for two hours and had approximately 25 clubs participating with rooms and stations set up with activities for the trick-or-treaters to take part in.
“This event was open for everyone to participate in,” KDP’s vice president of campus and community events, Yumnah Chaudhary said. “It was a good way to connect the campus community, the different honor societies, greek life and sport teams with the surrounding community. Everyone was welcome, and everyone was extremely excited. Everyone took great initiative and made sure that their rooms were decorated and interactive for the children. It’s not just the education department that was connecting with the kids, but everyone helped create a fun interactive environment.”
All the different clubs had different themes and activities they were running. Some popular rooms at the event included Sigma Delta Tau’s “Inside Out” themed slime-making activity, the Women and Gender Research Center’s witch-themed potion-making activity and Beta Alpha Psi’s monster-themed maze.
“I also really liked that there were some clubs that worked together,” KDP’s co-president, Sara Morejon said. “I liked seeing all the teamwork. And I like how efficient everyone was, it was because of these clubs that we had a successful event at the [University].”
The biggest difference from last year is the staff felt they had better communication, in comparison to last year. Specifically, Morejon noted that the students and faculty took extra measures to communicate the event to the broader community.
Morejon described how she felt the staff were “a close-knit group.” This year, they had more Spanish speaking translators and were actively promoting the event in Spanish.
“We know that a lot of the families around here are Spanish speaking, so it’s just something we’re used to,” KDP’s assistant to community liaison Mary-Abigail Caglione said. “It’s not something we have to do, but we know the type of people that are coming, and we want to make sure that everyone feels included.”
Safe Halloween helps KDP members get more in touch with parents and children they may work with. The event allows KDP members to talk to parents and children in a safe environment outside of the classroom.
“Events like this help KDP get more in touch with the parents and the children, something that maybe not a lot of colleges out there have,” Morejon said. “There were even some parents that came up to us and said, ‘Oh, I wish I had this when I was a kid’. It’s such a fun thing to do, to get kids and parents out there and to look forward to just doing things in their community. We even had a few parents say their kids were going to be future Jaspers.”