On Oct. 31, students at St. Thomas University took it upon themselves to celebrate Halloween by handing out candy to their peers.
One student, Talia Coderre, went around her apartment building costumed with her roommates. The group journeyed door-to-door to give out Halloween candy.
Coderre grew up in an area with lots of trick-or-treating and enjoyed sitting with her parents to hand out candy as she got older.
“I thought, ‘I still want to have this experience, I still want to share that joy of the holiday,’” she said.
Living off-campus created a need to continue building this type of community in her residence, so Coderre wanted to take Halloween as an opportunity to build connections with her neighbours.
“My favourite part is probably when the people actually stop and say ‘Hi’ and start a conversation. It’s more about meeting the people in your building because some of us go to STU, some of us go to UNB, none of us really run into each other … it’s nice to go and create those connections however you can.”
The idea to go door-to-door was inspired by the Residence Advisors at STU who would hand out candy to their residents – a tradition that carried on this year.
In Vanier Hall, house council members organized an event where residents would venture door-to-door to each floor at various times and engage in the traditional trick-or-treating experience.
House Council Member Ella Pratt was involved with this event for the first time. Their roommate purchased Halloween candy and left it to Pratt to hand out.
Then, they decided to step it up by dressing as a clown and handing out balloon animals.
“I just remember people coming down the hallway saying, ‘Are you the one that has the balloons?’ The day after they were like, ‘I love it so much. You made my night.’”
With their love of Halloween, Pratt wanted to take the opportunity to bring Halloween to campus.
“When I came [to university], I was like ‘I’m gonna miss Halloween.’ So, when I realized we were doing our own trick-or-treating … it just felt like something I had to do.”
Grace Lapointe was another council member involved with the Vanier trick-or-treating event. Having also grown up in a small town that loved to celebrate Halloween, Lapointe felt passionately about creating a fun event for her residents.
“There are these unsaid age restrictions on Halloween which I believe shouldn’t be a thing,” she said. “Teenagers deserve to go out and trick-or-treat and have fun … and having a factor where I can provide my fellow residents [the] ability to be a child for one day of the year again, I always want to be a part of that.”
Lapointe also felt that a fun Halloween was a good opportunity for students to cut loose in the midst of midterms.
“I feel like this was one of the best events that could have happened this year, where the residents got to just let go of everything holding them back.”
“There’s so much community behind doing all these events … I love seeing it all. It’s my favourite thing,” said LaPointe.
When asked about their favourite parts of giving away the treats, Coderre, Pratt and Lapointe all agreed that sharing the joy of Halloween was the best part of the day.
“The holidays bring me positive energy and I just want to share that with others,” said Coderre.
“I just liked seeing how much people enjoyed it,” said Pratt.
