Pumpkin Walk

For our group project in my Management of Organizations and People class, my team decided to volunteer at the Pumpkin Walk (look it up online, the North Logan Pumpkin Walk) and raise awareness of child safety during halloween and trick-or-treating.

Not gonna lie, I was against this idea from the get-go.  I wanted to throw a masquerade dinner/dance, and half of the team agreed with me, but for some reason this Pumpkin deal worked out...

Anyway, for the project, we got a lot of organizations to donate candy and crayons and coloring books, and we got dentists and policemen involved, and we made cotton candy.  (Btw, it sucks to make cotton candy for 5 hours straight.  Never doing that again.)

Let me tell you a secret that everyone already knows: kids are SO funny!  I was asking kids if they knew how to be safe on Halloween and they'd all nod their head, but when I'd ask them to tell me what they knew about being safe when they went trick-or-treating, they froze, and sometimes great things came out of their mouths.  Take some of my favorite responses:

(2 boys, probably 6 or 7 years old) First boy: "If you touch the door and it's hot half-way up...if the doorknob is hot...don't open the door and then the fire won't burn you."
Me, after a moment of blinking stupor: "Well, that's good fire safety, but do you know about trick-or-treating safety?"
First boy looks stumped, but the second boy is now bouncing up and down with his arm raised high in the air squeaking "Oh! I know!"  I tell him to go for it.
Second boy: "You should always bring a bag, otherwise you'll lose your candy."
I said that was true and resorted to asking them yes or no questions.

A boy, probably 5 years old: "Don't go to dark houses, unless it's your bishop's house, then it's okay."

I explained 3 of the simplest rules (stay with your parents, don't run across the street, and have your parents look at your candy) to a 4 year old, and right after I told her, I asked her what she learned, and she thought for a moment and then replied, "I'm gonna be a pirate for Halloween!"  I laughed, of course, and I told her that I like being a pirate for Halloween, so we could be pirate buddies.