Spring Break
CommUniverCity teams with community
for safe Halloween for children
Bianca deCastro
Issue date: 10/28/08 Section: News
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The event, called "Safe Halloween," was organized by CommUniverCity and is a partnership between the local community, SJSU and the city of San Jose. It was held at Martin Park near Melbourne Boulevard and Jeanne Avenue.
Paul Pereira, a neighborhood team manager for the city of San Jose's Strong Neighborhoods Initiative, talked about a few of the resources that were being offered at the event.
"PG&E, Silicon Valley Energy Watch and Environmental Services with the city are a few of the companies or groups that are out here today promoting energy efficiency," Pereira said. "Most of the residents speak Spanish, so one of the main goals was getting this kind of information to folks in Spanish. Four out of five people in the community do not speak English."
Thousands of children participated in an array of free arts and crafts and carnival games complete with prizes. A local DJ played a mixture of popular hip-hop tunes and traditional Mexican music.
Volunteering at one of the children's games, Emily Sun, a junior child development major and event volunteer, described a bowling-based activity with a Halloween twist.
"We're using (medium-sized pumpkins) for the bowling ball and decorated soda bottle liters for the pins," Sun said. "The kids are really enjoying it. This has been a great experience."
The main attraction was not the free games, prizes or crafts. It was the 10 pop-up tents that were filled with free Halloween costumes.
"We had 1,400 costumes to give away and they are all gone," Pereira said.
The free costumes were collected by Sunday Friends, a nonprofit organization that empowers communities to break the cycle of poverty.
"This was the first year that we collaborated with CommUniverCity. I'm thrilled with the turnout," said Janis Baron, executive director of Sunday Friends. "We collected the costumes from 28 different donors and at various drives; we thought we'd have costumes left over and we were wondering what we'd do with them, but there's nothing, and that's great."
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