Each year, the Office of Campus Ministry arranges for Los Angeles-area schoolchildren to be brought to campus to celebrate Halloween. This year's event will take place on Oct. 29.
Arriving in buses, the children, grades K-5, are met by LMU students, mostly freshmen, who guide them through games and special events, including costume-making for the ones who came as themselves. And the children quickly find the freshman residence halls on the northeast end of campus, all decked out with decorations. “We get about 500 kids for Fright Night and they really love it,” says Kristin Swiderski, program coordinator for the Residence Housing Association. “We get a great response from them.”
A collaboration among the Office of Campus Ministry, the Resident Housing Association, the Department of Athletics, and Associated Students, Fright Night is one of the first community-service efforts of the year. Undergraduates raise funds to help pay for buses, decorations and a share of the food. Some students, for example, donate the cost of a lunch or two from their OneCard. Residence hall councils decide on decorations and activities, including games, trick-or-treat stations, arts and crafts projects, and the location of haunted houses.
The event is fun for the kids, but LMU students learn something from it as well. “We look to this event as an important opportunity to carry out our mission to promote service to others,” says Charles Cownie, associate director of Campus Ministry. “Our students are very mindful they are providing the visiting kids with a celebration in a safe environment.”
Amid all the noise and fun another serious lesson is being taught: For many schoolchildren, Fright Night is their first look at a college campus. Marty Roers, coordinator of social justice ministry for Campus Ministry, explains how one principal contacted him asking if her students could attend: “She wanted to have her school included in Fright Night to give her students an introduction to college, so they could see that college is cool and could be a part of their future."